Investment or Gamble?

[Tony Wooldridge]

Good Morning BP. First off, a little house keeping. I would like to thank all investors big/small, experienced/novice/newbie and any other term you would like to attach to it, thank you for being part of this community and making it a wealth of knowledge for everyone involved! What a great place for REI's! OK got that out of the way, now business at hand.

I have a dilemma, I have found a great investment opportunity or so it would seem. It meets the eye test, distressed, it can be purchased at a huge discount, ( I will disclose the numbers below) all of the numbers make sense and begs me to just do it! However, here is the dilemma, it is in a small town close to where my farming area is located but this community doesn't really support a strong sales or rental history. There really isn't a lot in this community to support investing in it. Even though the property has huge upside (cheap with a good ARV). So it would seem this is a no brainier right?

Supposedly, there is a company coming in that will bring employment opportunity to the area that might support taking a chance (gamble) on this property.  However, this is speculation at this point.  But I been spending weeks of due diligence on go no go for this company and it sounds like the company is making headway.  Unfortunately, the business coming in will actually be located out of town about 25 miles away.  The community that the business is locating in is even worse off than the above town as there is nothing there to support rental/sales of RE. 

As promised the numbers :  The home 2 bed 1 bath 850 sqft.  Huge yard. Complete gut job!

I think I can get it for $20,000 to $27,000 (either # appears to still make for a good ARV)

I plan on putting in at least $30,000 (I have more I can allocate if I run into unforeseen problems) into the property ( both purchase and rehab will be with cash no financing)

I believe that after what I envision for the property, after rehab ( possibly adding another bath) and comps, it can bring conservatively $75,000, I think more but think I will stay conservative.

I personally feel that the numbers make sense to pull the trigger and generally feel RE is a good investment no matter what.  But when a community doesn't support sales/rental of RE it is a waste of investment, time and money to sit on a property hoping something changes.  If I was to do it, I might sit on the prpoerty for awhile to see if the business comes to town but hate to tie up $20kish with no end game.

So I ask you BP to invest or not to invest? Gamble or Investment?

Thanks again and thanks in advance for any and all feedback.  Happy Investing BP members!