Some people making mistakes will get bailed out by dumb luck with appreciation but that is gambling and not investing. 

I figured that I could afford to gamble about 30K and that it was a gamble...what I didn't figure was that it would end up costing ALOT more by the time the dust settled.

The concept is somewhat similar to the Kelly criterion from probability theory, which defines the % of your total bankroll you should be investing/gambling in a given proposition to optimize your profit and minimize your risk of ruin.

That's a gamble.

I guess banking on rental appreciation is the same as banking on equity appreciation its what everyone on this site calls gambling.

If money wasn't automatically taken from peoples paycheck for gambling in stocks with outlandish PE ratios today, and no real business in 2001, I doubt they'd sit down the weekend after pay day, shop for stocks, and place buy orders.  

It could appreciate but I consider that gambling.

If you do equity only your basically gambling to some degree.Buying negative cash flow assets is better then not buying anything at all however.

That is not investing, that is gambling.  

If your plan is to buy and hope that any property just goes up, I suggest just going to Vegas and putting it all on Red on the roulette table because hoping it goes up is just a gamble if you don’t do the research and have a game plan.