Do you think real estate is a good investment?

Thank you all for droppiong in and responding. I am heartened that the doom and gloom is being replaced by positive feedback. I cannot get the newspapers to stop. This is much better to have actual people with experience put their stories down. In my 22 years of experience in real estate I have NEVER seen the prices go down. What I mean is my first property in 1970 was $17,000 TOTAL at 5% interest. I assumed the loan with $2,000 down. I have never seen those prices again. And that was an average sales price. When I hear people uninformed by virtue they get educated by media of newspapers, radio news and television news or good ol relative, neighbor or busybody experts emphatically state that real estate is a bad investment, you will lose money etc. I get annoyed because in reality not the case. Yes if one was misguided into a purchase by way of qualifying on stated income, no doc loans or down right Fraud to get a loan then yes they will lose their homes and it will not be because they are losing value. The price improvements of late are because the prices have been driven up too quickly and they have to stop at some point. Waiting it out for a few years and it will again go up in price. This has been the case historically since trading property has begun. Foreclosures are up but the inevitiable happened with so many unqualified people being allowed to purchase, with sales people driven by greed and not the true needs of the client. Then the prices go up because the market gets inflated. Now we are in a true market and adjustments are happening.  Any more thoughts on this subject would be appreciated. I will check in again later. Thank you once again for dropping by.