Living in an "appreciation market" (as opposed to "cash flow" market) is tough because 80% of the strategies talked about on BiggerPockets don't work well here, especially if you want to live in a half decent area.We looked at 2-family properties, but ended up buying a 2BD/2BA fixer-upper condo in an area that still allowed us to live life how we wanted. 

When buying a fixer-upper in Waco, what are the key factors you look for to ensure the property has strong profit potential?

I ended up getting lucky and finding this one on zillow.The biggest problem I'm seeing is that everyone in my area wants close to retail price for fixer uppers - and people are paying it.

You can buy a large upper/lower with two identical units in decent condition for about 350-450k.

I am confident if I were to have started taking action sooner I would have had many more deals under my belt but I was a knucklehead and was swinging hammers on my fixer-upper instead of hiring a contractor. 

which is fine Iv done plenty of cash deals but always using my own money I haven’t ever borrowed someone’s money or had a hard money lender typically on deals that wore 100k-250k Iv also used conventional financing before for flips and so on But recently every house worth looking at in my area is around 400k-550k for a fixer upper.

Starting in Highlands neighborhood (or northside) which used to be a very rough part of town, is now the one of the top 3 most desirable are in the metro and this has slowly trickled down into neighborhoods south.I am an engineer so I love to base my decisions on data, so for example looking at census data, I like to look at % of high income earners in an area to gauge if I should invest or notFor 80204 which includes the neighborhood of Villa Park, in 2010 the % considered upper middle/high income was 4.2% of households. 2022 census says that now it is 40.5%On the other end is 80219 which includes the neighborhood Westwood which would have the lowest income area on my list, in 2010 Westwood had 4% as well, by 2022 it had 21.1% high /upper middle income earners.I have properties in both and tenant applicants are a wide variety (lower income folks on rental assistance to high income earnings wanting to rent in an area before buying a home) so its hard to put a property class in this area. 

The Fed signaled that it will cut the rate by another half a percentage point this year and expects four more cuts in 2025 and two in 2026.”I don’t have a crystal ball here… but logic suggests as rates dip into the lower 6s, and then 5s, potentially into the upper 4s, buyer power will increase.

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It's easy to fall in love with a charming fixer-upper, only to realize you've bitten off more than you can chew.