Tom Locus, 40 shows what sweat equity and real estate smarts can bring you. He and his wife, Susan 35, live in Ludington, Mich.

I began my teaching career in 1988 and immediately decided that I needed to own a home. Especially on a teacher's salary, rent didn't seem a very wise use of my newfound income.

I had done some work while I as in college for the homeowners of the first house I bought. I painted and helped move the furniture, that kind of thing. The owner wanted to sell the two-family house literally the week after I graduated from college, and  I had nothing to give him. But I scraped together a $2,500 down payment toward the $63,000 house and convinced him to do owner financing, so I made monthly payments to him.

This is a small town on the shores of Lake Michigan with a population of 10,00 that swells to 30,000 or 40,000 in the summer. It's a salmon-fishing Mecca. So I knew the market and knew this house was in a great location, across the street from our municipal marina, which overlooks the historic cross-lake car ferry.

I lived upstairs and rented the downstairs. My purchase price was relatively low, so as long as I kept it rented, I had no housing costs. In the summer, I converted the long-term rental into a daily or weekly vacation rental. My daily rates were $100 to $175 per night, depending on the dates.

This worked so well I was able to purchase another two-family home about ten years ago. Then I met Susan, the woman I'd eventually marry, and my goals began to change. The funniest thin happened just before we got married. I was driving here around, showing her property above these massive, awesome cliffs that rise out of the lake. And I ask, "Wouldn't it be great to have a lot like this?" She laughed, but I couldn't get the idea out of my head. I didn't sleep for three nights.

The asking price was $95,000 in 1997, which I knew was a steal, but we decided to make a low offer. It was accepted less than eight house later. We were amazed. We got the property on our own terms - the owner did the financing - and at our price.

We had to sell the second rental purchase after owning it for just nine months, to make the down payment on the land. We made a $22,000 profit.

We set a goal to begin to build our house in three years, and it all fell into place. Two years after we built, we decided to sell the original rental house because of the time it was taking from our new family, which now includes two beautiful daughter, Emma, 6, and Grace, 3.

I think the main reasons for our success are creativity and aggressive pursuit our ideas and dreams. We were willing to look at creative financing, we searched outside the traditional real estate publications, and we did a good deal of the work on our rental properties ourselves.

We have retirement plans at work, but 95% of our net worth is in the house, which was appraised at $850,000 a couple of years ago. The house is beautiful. It's a Cape Cod  design, with wraparound windows looking out over the lake. The top is an observatory. It has $65,000 worth of windows, but it's worth it.

People watch infomercials and think if they pay $120 for books that real estate investing is easy. It's not. It's hard work. It's market research. You can't buy the first investment property you find. But if you know the market, real estate an be a safe investment. I believe we're on stable ground.