Buy land?  You bet, now is the time to buy before herds of overseas investors buy.  Land offers protection against a bigger market downturn.  There are bargains out there now in real estate.  Overseas investors with U.S. dollars burning holes in their pockets will buy to diversify their portfolios away from U.S. Treasury bonds and to protect their holdings from any futher decline in the dollar.  You can find some great bargains on land in the U.S. stock market as well as with local real estate agents who specialize in the arena.  Land also offers some downside protection in case stocks as a whole head further south.  Buy now, before these assets ahead of the herd of overseas investors that will discover this asset class, once the panic passes in the meltdown in the U.S. market for mortgage backed debt. An increasing number of overseas investors are joining the global search for alternatives to dollar denominated investments, looking for real estate in Hong Kong and U.S ; Australian dollars; gold and silver and other commodities.  Overseas investors will realize that U.S. real estate is a great hedge against what they fear most, inflation in the United States.  As you know, an asset such as land goes up in value when inflation soars.