Same rules apply to your first deal as they should to gambling: only risk the amount you can afford to lose.

That way you're limiting the expense and risk if the contractor is fraudulent and he takes your 10K$ for material and disappears. now you're just out 10K$ instead of the minimal amount to secure the job. 

Of course my accounts are totally personal anecdote but I own over 3500 units on the mainland and grew up here in Hawaii so I tend to have a decent amount of awareness.So going back to the argument that Hawaii will never go down in value... well it could appreciate but I consider that gambling.

I like Vegas, people have shown how committed they are to gambling.

Sponsors need to get paid for their time and LPs should want for them to feel financially stable so that they're not doing moonlighting gigs to make ends meet while they're gambling with their money. 

Appreciation 100% based on NOI.For a 5 year time frame I would not gamble on or rely on SFH appreciation.

Unless you are purchasing a house to live in while you are going to school, I would think that any other type of "speculative" use of that money would be fraudulent.

The agent may, in fact, be telling the truth and working in the buyer's best interest if the buyer doesn't want to gamble on a short sale.  

None of these specialties really relates to RE investing per se.What you do have are people skills and perhaps a nose for scammers, cheats, fraudulent low life types, that are in RE.

They got their loan and bought the house and the seller didn't have to lift a finger.It was a gamble for them but it paid off.