I have some spare which I want to invest and I was thinking of doing some Real Estate Investing. But I really don’t know what I would stand to benefit from investing in Real Estate.

Your statement "what do I stand to gain" implies that you are not very aware of the risks and rewards.
Before you invest your money make sure you have put pencil to paper and figured out the costs and benefits.
You should clarify your business goals.
"Real estate investing" is far too vague.
Commercial or residential
Individual investor or REIT’s
Long term or short term
Rentals or new development?

If done right and if you educate yourself and treat it as a business you can do well.
Like any other self employed business person you can expect to work very hard and have very tight cash flow at the beginning but in the long run you can build equity.

My mom is a realtor in the Bay area and she hasn’t been selling houses lately and now it is causing us to move to a smaller house. We used to be very rich and had a 4,500 sq foot home but now we live in a really small home because of nobody buying any houses…What is causing all these Foreclosures and why isn’t anybody buying homes lately?
does the war and president bush have anything to do with this?
and when are things going to get better? next year?

people buying things that they can ill afford. tb

This question is for people with experience with what I am asking about only:

If I know of some good deals can I " partner" up with them in some respect, and essentially earn a modest profit for bringing them the deal.

Also, a related question is what are good ways to drum up private hard money for all sorts of property purchases nationwide.

I am especially hoping to hear from people who have actually done what I am talking about.
thanks entre. That was really helpful.

I really appreciate it.

There are tons of ways to find seasoned investors, but to give you a starting point you could visit your local Real Estate Investment club and network, you can also run ads in the newspaper, visit your local foreclosure auctions and network, you can call the we buy houses signs and talk with the people who answer the phone, you can stop your call while driving past a house being renovated and ask the workers who owns it and if he/she owns other properties and then look up the owner.

I have wholesaled hundreds of homes in my area and all my buyers came from newspaper ads where I advertised for a house I had under contract and networking with the guys/gals that buy houses on the courthouse steps. Once you do a few deals, the buyers find you and you no longer need to keep hunting if your deals are good and you can smoothly keep the transaction together.

As for the hard money, I found my first one using the business opportunity section of my local newspaper under the ads labeled: money to lend. I also asking for referrals within my real estate investment club.

I hope this helps

an old bandmate left his amp at my house, and I know there’s a 30 day law or something, but it’s been 80 days, and 40 after i tol him he had a week to come get it. can anyone point me in the direction of the details of WI Abandoned Property laws? i can find alot of secondhand info, but not the laws themselves.

www.findlaw.com