[GrandMasterBirt]

I will answer this with an anecdote:

My friend bought a building. 50 apartments. He got investment money from family to put a down payment on the loan. Fix it up. Have tenents pay rent and cover the loans while looking for a seller. Sell it for a proffit.

This was great. Except that he had ABSOLUTELY no risk-mitigation. He could not afford to keep the house on the market for 3 yrs to ensure that no matter what, he does not lose all the invested money.

Guess what? Problems arose trying to sell the house. Took 3 months longer than expected (9mo total vs expected 6). Money ran out. Boom foreclosure. Lost 800k.

The lesson I learned is that take what you are assuming will happen, and make at least SOME risk mitigation. How can you get out? If you can't what will you lose? Etc. Don't make long term risky goals based on hopes that everything will be alright. Assume the worst, can we still come out even if that happens?