Upside is key whether forced appreciation or speculation that the area is going up.

We have had offers pre-listing for over 4m but I cannot seem to get a solid number as to how high an investor would be willing to pay, although I know it is all speculation until it closes!

I got out of the business when I started really getting in to real estate and realized that paper assets (stocks, bonds, mutual funds) seemed like speculation to me and real assets were more like investing because real assets produce cash flow while with paper assets, they rarely have much cash flow so you are basically holding on to the paper hoping to later sell to someone else for more than you bought it. 

If you aim much higher than this you'll likely end up speculating and putting your hard earned cash at great risk!

@Jeremy Dolan, We can only speculate on what could of happen.

A court would rarely award speculative damages (short term rental occupancy would fall under this category), so why should you as the landlord?

I have heard people say this strategy is less investing and more speculation.

Like you mentioned - lease option, owc, subject-to, etc ** rent by the room, str, mtrPeople are speculating, if all they are doing is buying and hoping for appreciation.

Buying rentals with a negative cash flow in hopes of future appreciation is SPECULATION.

We are all doing a bunch of speculating here because none of us have all of the details or the contracts.