Here's what I've been told:- Realtor is your gateway to accurate MLS data (unless you become a licensed agent yourself)- The wrong realtor may speculate and potentially provide inaccurate info, but they should be, in general, one of your stronger resources for things like FMV (fair market value), DOM (days on market) and other details associated with local/current trends- www.irr.com seems to be a great resource for national and local market reportingI hope this is helpful - otherwise, I trust an expert will comment soon enough :) ...Btw - my family and I love to visit your area in the summertime (7 presidents)...sorry for the annoying seasonal traffic from us North Jersians!

Are any folks here actually holding back on purchases given the early signs of a slowdown (especially high cost speculative markets like SF / NYC) or is this overblown?

If I was to borrow lets say 100K for a down payment on a property I am currently speculating on.

A speculator is someone who buys with the intent of improving and flipping.Most people who call themselves wholesalers are wannabe dealmakers who don't have the capacity to close on a deal themselves.

Please give us some specific numbers, or we can only speculate.

Again, to some extent this is speculation in absence of a better understanding of the funds target assets.  

All of which is speculation, so I decided to contact the local police.

@Benjamin MolinaIt was an appreciation play and likely putting their cash in a safe haven.There is a lot of speculation on Midtown area at the moment with the new arena and new property developments going up. 

I'm not a speculative investor so I didn't factor that in! 

However, many of the buy and hold deals I'm seeing investors do this year look like pure speculation to me, where there the deal is nothing more than a bet on the continued upward trajectory of the Austin market.