And yeah, it was brilliant, people were awe struck by finished product, point is it's big $ gambles, BIG, if I was wrong that coulda been a $40k+ "whoopsie". 

You're taking a gamble.  

If so probably worth the gamble.  

Yet it feels like the gamble might be too big, especially once you open up state databases and visually see sinkhole incidents throughout the neighborhoods.

Only question is if X amount is worth the gamble.

But that's gambling on the future.

It is a gamble to hire somebody to do work for you, but at some point you will hopefully scale to where that is required.

Take your time to find the right tenant I’d much rather have a vacant house with no rent than an occupied one where my gambles on a tenant didn’t pay out.  

Do you like to gamble? 

As far as natural disasters go we are much more concerned about the off shore Juan de Fuca tectonic plate which has a proven history of causing large earthquakes and tsunamis that affect the whole Western part of the state.