Predictive data analytics and cheap hardware have just recently been disrupting many industries with settled orthodoxies of operation and I believe property management is still operating on mostly the same ideas (again I am not a professional, just an observation).  

However, I also think that rent range is volatile in Buffalo should/when the next market downturn take place, as the folks paying $1500-1800 may be looking for $1000-1200, but that is really tough to predict.

Really tough to say and hard to predict.

That essentially gives you 1.5 - 2 times rent predicted now.

One here in Oakland, another in Los Angeles.We of course cannot predict the future, but in the above case I just "assumed" that rates don't move one iota between now and a month or two from now.Getting the HELOC first, or getting the HELOC concurrently, priced out with the 1st position 30YF being 0.375% higher (holding constant all fees etc) compared to getting the refinance done first, and then getting the HELOC as a distinct separate transaction.

I always stress test my investments to predict whether they can weather an economic storm.At the end of the day, this might be an indicator, but it also might not.

I don't know that anyone can predict the housing market 10 years from now. 

As I'm sure most people could predict, the answers I received varied from yes, to maybe, to absolutely not. 

You can evaluate an investment by having data about the sponsor, deal, market, etc. and then some reasoning about how that data predicts success (however you define success). 

The U.S census is predicting Hispanics to be the largest race in America by 2050 according to data and trends.