My area has seen a slight boost from casino gambling and the future of nanotechnology. 

I've heard many veteran investors now discounting them even further now to hedge for any possible changes that may come from city hall to elevate the houses X ft.With some of these houses, it's too much of a gamble to invest into them when you don't know what type of regulations the city will lay down in the near future.Unless you're buying at a deep discount, it's a bit too risky.

Everything is a gamble.

Why gamble with your money?

Here is why:1) every month I'm paying down my debt using my cash flow and can pay extra towards my debt and still make more money vs waiting for future appreciation2) rents in my area have gone up for 80 years now3) my rental income is subsidized by HUD so your tenants over time will not pay consistently when they lose their Job, get disgruntled, have a bad day lol4) the rental income I get is 2x more per dollar invested therefore I more than compensate for higher appreciation but I have advantage of 1 to 3 aboveSummary my IRR is guaranteed you are gambling on both your tenant and local market.

s, it's a fairly upscale house and yes, in this national market, that is a considerable degree of "speculation" (read: gambling).Unless you know it's a hot up-scale area, I'd opt for something more mainstream which caters to a much larger potential market.

As well as if you buy anything via an FHA loan you need to live there for a year.So nothing all that special there with a HUD house.Generally though with the idea of buying a place, living in it while fixing it and then selling it for a profit you should keep a few things in mind.1) A year, or more, is a long time and the market can change so there is a gamble.  

As a last note, holding out for appreciation is akin to gambling, but I think you are right and was saying over a year ago that Augusta was undervalued.

If I ever run into private money I will do my best to make that work but private money seems very hard to find, but hard money on the other hand seems like a big gamble especially with my lack of experience investing.  

They gamble and use stamps to place and pay their bets to each other (among other things).