In hindsight, I should have picked Texas or some other non-bubble state that had good demographics and a business-friendly government. Many come to mind.

Ho ho ho, Texas. Yes, take all of your gains and invest them in Texas real estate. There is money to be made there by the bucketloads. Since I’m such a nice guy, I’ll even tell you how to do it. So here’s how you make money in Texas:

1) Buy farmland 20 miles outside of suburban D/FW, Austin, or Houston. Put some cows on it so that you can claim it’s a farm and pay low property tax.

2) Use your buddies in the city, county, state, and federal good old boy networks (I do hope you have some) to make sure that new roads and business districts get put near your land. Be prepared to hold your investment a while, this may take 10-20 years.

3) Once the new metro area starts springing up around your land, subdivide it and turn it into a housing development. Again, your buddies in the city and county governments will be needed here to help you out with permits, new roads, utilities, etc… Make sure you’re prepared to scratch their backs (or grease their palms) in exchange for their help.

There you go! You’re an instant Texas real estate tycoon. Note that if you don’t have the prerequisite connections in the good old boy network, you’ll just end up with a bunch of land in the middle of nowhere full of fire ants and weeds. But you can always park a trailer on it and live there, although you might have to drive a while to get to Wal-Mart for groceries.