For any kind of business, only few succeed. It's not that you had a MS or Ph. D and had held professional jobs that you could assume automatically that you are better off than other people to invest in a particular field.
JY's repeated advice or warning about not to expect high appreciation is based on his experience at his location, and his observation during the course of 20 years. However, it is also a valuable advice for any local market. A market going up rapidly must have one of these factors: 1. increased population. 2. job structure moves up (more high-paying jobs created) 3. unusual inflow of capital investment (foreign hot money). For long term investment, say you want to hold 5 years expecting 20%, you got to have 170% (compound 20% for 5 years) increase in price to get that goal. However, 5 years is a long time, you have big risk related to interest. If interest goes up, price will drop. Right now housing mortgage is so low, it's scaring that the only way it can go is up.
If you do flipping(short term), then you must have be more active and possess the necessary skill, connection, and resources. As more people getting into this, it's hard to make money, too many multiple offers. You also have utility of money issue (your money is not alway able to find the right property to put into).
