Delores Conway, director of the Casden Real Estate Economics Forecast at the University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate, agrees that it's a tough time to try to break into investing.
"Caution is the right word," Conway said. Because the market has not hit bottom yet, inexperienced investors could easily lose money to declining home values while trying to flip a house for profit.
"That's not to say that there aren't opportunities. There are some opportunities and there will be more because some of the prices have been greatly reduced," she added. "There are people who do it, but generally they're fairly experienced. They've done it before and they've learned."...