For the past decade, everyone has been talking at every cocktail party and infomercial about the wonders of investing in real estate. Mostly single family dwellings. While that type of investing has paid great dividends in the past, you would have to be living in a cave not to be aware that the great single-family investment cycle is over. And even larger properties and more complicated forms of real estate, including shopping centers and industrial buildings, may have seen their peak.