I find these threads interesting as a way to appreciate how hard it is for people to find and digest financial advice. There is some great advice in this thread, but it is mixed with some truly awful advice, sometimes in the same post. This isn't said as a slam, but a novice investor has no way to make a judgement as to which advice is meaningful to his situation and what advice is not. It is no wonder that financial advisors continue to do so much business. It also is no suprise that so many of the really good financially savvy posters wish they could just go through the thread and delete and condense a whole bunch of posts.
This problem of too much information and contradictory information is why you must educate yourself to a basic level so you can start to decide what advice makes sense to you. This can be accomplished with a fairly small amount of reading. I would go to a site like
http://www.diehards.org/forum/index.php or pick up a book like "The Coffeehouse Investor" as a place to start.
Don't start with the idea that your goal is to 'win' by making outsize returns on your money. Investing is not like poker in that you don't have to beat everyone else to profit. If you achieve market returns in a balanced portfolio that matches your risk tolerance you will be just fine. This likely means that index funds, which the vast majority of financial advisors will not sell you because they are not paid to do so, are the best option.
Once you have a basic idea of the proper investment vehicles and the asset allocation you want you can start to decide how to garner the best tax advantage. If you are willing to put the money aside for retirement you may choose something like a SEP IRA that allows a fairly large annual tax deductible contribution. If you decide you want the money to remain liquid you might forego the tax deduction and keep it in a taxable account. Fortunately index funds are generally tax efficient.
Real estate is a much more personal decision. I would say you should decide to buy based on your lifestyle and factors like the interest rate on your prospective mortgage and the length of time you would hold the property. You will find it nearly impossible to time the market, so I would discard that as a criteria. Prices could have nearly bottomed out, or they could sink for years to come. If you try to decide which is going to happen you will find a morass of contradictory opinion. You are better off asking yourself if owning real estate fits your lifetstyle and goals right now, rather than guessing if you will enter the market at the right time.