I think the key is the 'highly desired market".

I live in a former logging town gone resort boom town. In the last 15 years the median price has gone from 200k to 800k, but the riverfront properties have doubled that gain, from 500k to 4 million. I'm surrounded by real estate multi-millionaires. When I point out that BRK has gone from 100k to 800k in the same time, they correctly point out that their investment also gave them a place to live and RE is the easiest of all investments to apply a bit of debt related leverage. I hope they recognize they were lucky, and that RE is not often that lucrative.

Yup. This is in part what I mean by look for properties with constraints to competition. There's only so much waterfront, some less easily developed than others. And the inefficiencies of the market can be seen with our primary residence that was priced without consideration of it being lakefront. Admittedly, it was not lake view at the time, though we have taken care of that. Our second property is on a river, but much more rural so it's value will no likely decline as work from home starts to ebb, but I am not selling this place. It too had no mention of waterfront in the listing, and not even a picture of the very overgrown river bank which we have since cleared to a very long view, but because we already loved the river for kayaking, and had been vacationing here for 4 years, we knew to check it out. There are good opportunities out there, but it has been more of a labor of love than a pure investment. If we had to include all the manhours spent searching for investable properties, it would be hard to justify as an investment. I do love a bargain hunt though.

IP