They gamble on appreciation. 

., price is too high) so I knock it out pretty early on and it might not even cross my radar.An active agent or broker in the area who's working with clients probably has a better exposure to a lot of deals closing, and thus a lot of cap rates, than an individual investor like me who pre-screens a lot of deals and only does transactions for her/himself.As far as "applying a cap rate", you may already know this but in case someone else reading this in the future doesn't, what I mean is taking the net income (NOI) of the property and dividing it by a (somewhat-arbitarily-chosen, I admit) market cap rate to result in an estimated value.

When quoting a bid for a larger project I would quote X amount plus fixtures and finishes to be bought (or at least chosen) by the client. 

The only thing that matters is how much you're willing to gamble.

There's no "best way" to accomplish this and it's a gamble every time.

You shouldn't be spending it, gambling it, or investing it.

The local party affiliates (who have either been sold on the "Trees" or think they are falling in line with the grander party desires will put these barriers in place locally (and ruin their community in the long run), but this is at odds with the actual desires of the "Sellers" because solving the carefully chosen "Gin-ed up problem" leaves them without any problem to solve (which is their selling point to get national votes).The SJW's are a disparate group.

If you can't buy the property right it's a gamble, not an investment. 

does not mean this will also happen to you.So this is what you do.YOU need to do a cost/deal calculation for every method for lead generation you are considering for your market.Now you know how much money you need IF you were to do DMM, or IF you were to do bandit signs.Now this is DATA, so you are not gambling much here.Then factor in the effort it takes and the time it takes for a deal.Bandit signs may be almost free but it is illegal and a LOT of effort and work, and again risk for hefty fines.DMM simply is a bad idea... so figure out what is feasible and then you go for that!

You are taking a gamble because a bad tenant could cost you way more than appreciation, once you subtract out the transaction costs.