When there are concerns about worldwide growth the dollar will appreciate.

Having an end game , understanding the timing of ins and outs, knowing the players and the rules are all necessary ingredients to minimize risk and know that you have a strategy that will succeed.IMO any one that sees the stock market as a crap shoot should stay a way from it.

As Charles sort of suggested, there's probably some sort of economics-based differential equations that could be used to model return vs risk vs time in various investment activities.While it probably wouldn't be useful in real life (not sure you could tune the inputs well-enough to be meaningful), you could probably play around with various inputs to get a feeling for their sensitivities to one another.If I were smarter, I'd probably be able to apply some of the utility modeling work I used to do as a poker player to real estate investing...Which actually reminds me that I've been meaning to start a really geek thread on a related subject...a bit off the topic (or maybe not), but if you've studied card counting in blackjack or were ever a geek poker player, you may be familiar with the Kelly Criterion...I've recently started thinking about whether there is a way to apply the concept to portfolio real estate investing:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion

Find out who the key players are in your area usually through the local real estate clubs or even here on BP ;) Once you connect with some key players, find out their investing criteria - what they are looking for and which neighborhoods they like to buy.

I guess I could have better phrased the question...it is more of an issue of learning the best way to make him a team player and want to deliver in a timely fashion instead of forcing him to deliver in a timely fashion.

If you can change your pay to $1 a year, then it might be a sign that you are willing to be a team player.

Or lets say you are a famous football player who owns rental properties, that would make you a target.

Sounds like you're off to a roaring start, and it's great you're joining a local group; it definitely is helpful to meet the major players and pick their brains. 

Is the dollar store Dollar General, Dollar Tree/Family Dollar, Fred’s Super Dollar or a mom & pop/regional player?

Alarm.com is a new player to the market who has a excellent cloud based system which has a lot of bang for the buck, can intergrate camera systems, energy management, and security all under one platform and easy to manage from anywhere in the world being cloud based.