The nature of a contrarian is to look at the general consensus and then act in the opposite manner. This can happen in any niche as we've just seen with Warren Buffet buying a railroad company, an investment he used to scorn! Well, you probably don't have 30 billion or so to buy your own railroad company, but a huge contrarian opportunity exists in real estate at the moment.

Location, location, location - these are the three words chanted endlessly by those in the real estate market. While location is critical to a good real estate investment, so is time, time and time. The basic idea of any investment is to buy low and sell high. This is why one of the mandates of real estate buying is to purchase the worst home on the block in a neighborhood. Over time, you'll be able to fix it up and reap a huge gain in the equity while writing off your improvements once you sell the home.

Well, time is providing us with a contrarian opportunity now. Things in the economy as a whole, and real estate in particular, looked really ugly a year ago. The idea of a second Great Depression was gaining serious traction. It was a scary time and I'll flat out call you a liar if you don't admit you weren't a tad worried as well at one point or another. Well, flash forward a year and things have stabilized for the most part. The rampant fear is gone. Real estate markets haven't improved much. In fact, many are still dropping in value but the movements are more of a trickle than an avalanche.

So, how does time play into this? Now is the time to buy. There may never have been a better time in the history of the real estate market. Think about it. The market has stabilized, but people are still doom and gloom. This is the perfect opportunity for a contrarian. You can jump in near the bottom of the market and ride that rebound to a huge equity gain.

Still have doubts? Let me ask you a simple question. Where do you think the real estate market will be in five years? The economy is going to return to normal and housing is going to return to its previous values or close to them. That presents a huge potential gain just begging you to come along for the ride. Ah, but what if things don't recover? What if the national debt goes crazy? What if housing completely crashes? What if we fall into a Great Depression? Well, so what? If these things happen, your money, 401k and so on isn't going to be worth anything anyways. If the planet is destroyed in 2012 per the Mayans [who must be miffed they are being marketed like this], it really isn't going to matter what you did, so jump in and make some money today!

Step away from the herd. Look at things with your own eyes. What do you see? An opportunity to make money in real estate like we have not ever seen in this country. Take advantage of it!