The Laws of Attraction and How to Win Friends and Influence People does work.Be a bit more gentle when you make sweeping statements about a community.

This is caused by the combination of moisture and a substrait for growth.

Be gentle!

If you do find a current owner's address be gentle and as professional in your approach as you can be. 

Often this is causedby years of settling....the "piers" that hold up the floor have failed or moisture andwater damage have made the floor joist sag!...

If you install during the hotter season you risk the floor most likely gapping and coming apart during the winter or buckling during the inverse.If you are set on some type of hard surface flooring a dehumidifier could help reduce some of the risk for the time being, since changes in humidity and moisture are actually what cause expansion and contraction not temperature, they usually are just tied hand in hand.The larger the room the more the floor will move.

It's 1200sq ft (probably more because it certainly didn't feel like 1200 sq ft when we looked around) sold as-is with special warranty deed and on the surface there are very little cosmectic problems with the house except for the carpet and walls and one moisture damaged window.

Having said that, if you use your handyman, you need to make sure he removes all the moisture (dehumidifiers) before he buttons things back up in addition to treating affected areas, or else you will still have the problem.

I take that to mean the value of the property in regard to cash flow and appreciation and debt paydown VS. my 25% down payment doubled (from 0% to 100%) then doubled again (from 100% to 200%) and so on to a factor of 10, which basically beats the pants off of say, investing that $50,000 in stocks and seeing a 5% per year increase, for a total of 150%, or a factor of 1.5.My question is, am I misinterpreting something, or do leveraged returns really skyrocket like that even in a gently-appreciating housing market?

From the research I have done the house is worth about 106,000Comparable comps in the neighborhood that have been gently updated run for about 110k-120k.I would love to take over the house and lease it out but my only problem is updating the cosmetics of the house.