Real Estate is not for the faint of heart. It is only for those with patience, and the money to cover the bills in a downturn. I am shocked at how many people think of real estate as a "get rich quick" scheme. It's the furthest thing from the truth.

And I don't believe that a lot of these corporations aren't making money. Most of them just use it as an excuse to keep things tight. I volunteer for the school music organization and we sell ads in the musical's playbill to raise funds. I can't tell you how many companies used the economy as an excuse to not renew their ads. Some, like restaurants, I believe. But one of them was a body shop. People stop getting into accidents in a bad economy? Considering that the majority of this guys business comes from insurance companies, I think he's full of s**t.

Lots of companies are also using this as an excuse to make their employees work more for less. My husband's department was once 13 people. They're now down to five, and four of them are outsourced. My husband is the sole employee. It's not that they're not busy, they are just as busy, if not more so. They just put the squeeze on the employees so that they get more work out of them.