Unfortunately, this job requires a lot of travel, stress, and no predictability.  

( which you can find out either from a realtor or an appraiser ( i would trust the appraiser more). so if the cost of work does not add a lot more to the NOI to raise the value past what you are spending, then it's not worth doing, unless you can predict the future and know that the value of the property will appreciate in that area and you can make money on the back end when you sell.

You will not be able to predict who is who, and the answer will change over time.

My prediction is that home prices will continue to fall in areas dependent on the L trains until a month or two before they shut down the line - then I think prices will stay low until maybe half a year before the project is completed (there will be light at the end of the tunnel, pun intended), at which point prices will rise to all time highs.  

A seller or property owner can not predict a special assessment that might occur 7 months after they sell the property

They are basically taking the wholesaler's approach "I buy houses fast for cash" from lower priced neighborhoods and scaling it up to median and higher price points.For some Sellers the predictability and convinience is more important than the money.

Any good websites for accurately predicting rent ranges in a particular area (found a bunch, but would like to know which is most accurate/useful)?

I know you can't predict the market but do you think that it would be advantageous to wait to sell vice selling this year?

Someone buys my contracts when I predict right and I get the difference.

(A healthy read on that notion is Ray Dalio's Work and Life Principles - most of his life he has been looking to predict the future of markets, commodities and economies and he failed a few times on a massive scale; one of his key messages: being radically open minded and discussing a topic with someone who has polar opposite views and trying to understand their rational is the single best way to test your assumtions.)Hate to say it but BP is contributing to this problem: it makes me almost angry every time I see a new blog with a catchy title, such as: "512% profit on my first deal!"