“It is high risk, you just have to be careful,” said Mr. Vogel, who worked as a geodesist and information technology manager for what was the Defense Mapping Agency. “You have no control over the stock market,” he added, explaining that they didn’t have the stomach for the volatility after losing half of the $100,000 they had invested in mutual funds during the market downturn in 2000.

With a pension accounting for half of their retirement income, the couple may have more room for error than other retirees. They also paid for the property in cash — the C.D. money covered half, and they used a home equity loan on their primary home to cover the remainder.

If you’re thinking about testing these waters, you can expect to compete with cash buyers like the Vogels — they represented 32.3 percent of home sales in February, according to the Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey. But a lot of those investors have much deeper pockets. In certain spots across the Sunbelt, in particular, the homeowner next door may actually be a faceless private equity firm. The Blackstone Group and other Wall Street investors are gobbling up properties in places like the Tampa Bay area of Florida by the thousands. And their exit strategy could affect yours.

Jack McCabe, a real estate consultant in Deerfield Beach, Fla., said he had never seen large investors purchase so many homes in one fell swoop, giving them such great sway over pricing in the market. “A lot of the price increase is not due to a market that is getting healthy, but is due to the influx of hedge funds, and a high percentage of homes are selling at artificially inflated values,” Mr. McCabe said.

Should you decide to follow the Vogels’ lead, there are a variety of calculations you should make, and concerns and questions you should have ahead of time, several of which are sketched out below.