Were you one of the many thousands encouraged by the government to draw out much of the equity in your house, to finance what turned out to fund some risky Buy-to-Let scheme? Did you think that this was the way to build your fantastic retirement fund, only to be badly burned? Before the current financial crisis hit us - probably as a direct result of the above - many Governments extolled the virtue of pulling masses of equity out of our homes, using 'paper' equity to fund the purchase of Buy to Let property.
Give them their due, they probably had the same advisors as all of the leading banks and mortgage companies, and look what happened there! So in an attempt to replace the State's inability to provide adequate pension needs for millions of people, whether State or privately provided, they very cleverly passed the buck onto the shoulders of thousands of homeowners, and encouraged them to take out loans against their properties to help finance the purchase of other properties that would not only provide capital growth, but also a reasonable income.
Not just the government, but the whole ethos promoted in the press and in all forms of public media, was to use debt as a way out of today's problems.
The whole property scene was aggravated by the fact that there was virtually no regulation of what was going on, either by the property developers, or the official financial services.
In many cases, even 'Pillars of Society' such as banks, valuers, and even solicitors, started to turn a blind eye to sharp practice, or even worse activities, where the promise of quick easy money was on the table.
This has been brought out into the open on many occasions over the last few years, with media giants such as the BBC's Panorama and Inside Out programs, and leading papers like the Sunday Times, coming out with all sorts of horror stories of ordinary folk being virtually conned out of their life savings on dodgy - and sometimes downright crooked - property deals.
So with such disasters hitting the media on such a regular basis, and the whole financial situation caused by big banks fuelling this 'Debt' culture forcing property prices way down in many parts of the Western world, was Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad Poor Dad fame wrong in his statements that one of the pillars of wealth was property ownership? Were we back to the situation where our State Pension would keep us in coffee, but very little else...
Back in those bad old days then, the statement 'If it seems too good to be true - it probably is' seemed to ring horribly true.
So what happens when an entrepreneur comes along with a fantastic vision, and creates a property investment package that in today's terms - 'Seems too good to be true'.
How does such a person succeed in today's atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust? If a deal comes along these days that looks like it could provide a residual income that would satisfy many people's living needs; that proposed a property purchase that was initially well below the current market value; could be 100% financed (subject obviously to the purchaser's credit rating); had a projected capital growth of at least 70%; has a guaranteed developer's loan of 70% of the projected value, rental guarantees, fully managed with a massively high demand for occupancy, then surely the developer would have buyers queuing at his door.
Unfortunately, with the history of what has gone on over the last five or six years, even seeming 'rock-solid' deals have proved to be very difficult to find willing purchasers, using conventional methods.
What is emerging nowadays, is a new way of promoting 'Too good to be true' type deals.
Borrowing the same terminology as established network marketing companies have used for centuries, people who see the opportunity - and have FAITH and TRUST in the developer are putting their own money where their mouth is, and becoming pioneers, and then spreading the word as property agents for the developer.
It is these people that are then bringing such projects to market, so rather than the bad old days where 'faceless' property companies would promote new developments - using techniques like full page colour adverts in the Sunday Times - a new breed of property promoters is arising from the ashes of the mistakes carried out with such disastrous results in the past.
All of a sudden, places like Facebook and Twitter become the new 'real estate' outlets for the world.
After all, would you rather place your future income potential in the hands of some unknown organisation, or from an actual person that you can build a relationship with, who has genuinely invested their own money in the same project as you? Look around.
Once again, confidence is returning into property, and there are some 'Seems too good to be true' deals out there that are really extraordinarily good.