The three most important things in real estate are location, location, location.
 

True. "You never say never and never say always, but this one's pretty close to always," says Gaines of both residential and commercial real estate. "Location is far and away the number-one variable, and the number-two variable is a distant second.""I'd be hard pressed to dispute that," agrees Delaney. "Other things come into play when determining value for a piece of property, but loca­tion ranks right up there in importance, if it's not the most important."

Exception: "It's location, price, and terms, in that order," says Baen. "The rule came from retail sales in the commercial real estate business, where you're either in the corner loca­tion or you're not. In residential real estate, if a property is over­priced and there's no financing available, it doesn't matter what the location is."