How do I protect real estate profite until the market comes down?

[dixion]

Thanks in advance for any help. My wife and I sold our house 19 months ago, and after paying off all bills, auto loans etc., we came out with about $80.000. We look at this money as a savings account. The only thing that we did with $20,000, is buy some gold and silver, which has done OK and I still look at as savings.

We bet back then that the real estate market would crash and I feel that the worst is yet to come.Our plan was to rent, sit on this money and use it for a down payment on our next house.

The problem is that between the two of us we make about $170.000 a year and at tax time this year, on top of what we already paid, we owed $9,000 more. We maxed out our defered comps, changed our deductions, but I think we will still get killed next year because we don't own a house.

I am worried that if the market takes a couple of years to deflate that I could lose my seed money to buy another house to the IRS. Someone at work said that I need a losing bussines. This sounds fishy. Other than one of us quitting our jobs, what can we do to defend our money?