I can recall the 1970s. My parents were becoming quite successful in buying and selling apartment complexes (especially using limited partnerships). In the process, we had seen good markets and bad markets.
Fortunately, even though we had dabbled outside San Diego in places like Indio, Banning and Beaumont California; and we had also pondered Tulsa Oklahoma, we saw something special in Phoenix.
Phoenix had tanked worse than the rest of the nation in the late 1970s. From what I observed, they did two things that were huge in their recovery.
First, they observed what did work and what did not work in other cities across the nation. Then they used that knowledge to look at how they wanted to develop the greater Phoenix area. Where other cities had been bogged down in traffic, Phoenix built to anticipate traffic. So much so, that they could handle twice the traffic I saw in other cities and you could travel that distance in half the time.
Also, Phoenix worked on enticing emerging industries with thousands of new jobs. Since the prices had plunged far worse than the rest of the country, the workers could buy nice houses and live high quality lives. Thus, the employers kept employees longer.
The truth is that in good markets and in bad markets there are always people making a profit. So remember, there is always good news about a bad market.
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