Also, I bought mine furnished and depending on where yours is located and what sort of demographic you want booking it (budget conscious, luxury, local emphasis, etc.) will have a huge impact on how you much you should plan to spend on furnishings and decor. 

I’m a project manager for a global combustion and emissions controls company.

I think cash flow will be sparse; if not, I'd be interested as well in seeing what Jonathan Boyle has to say.Low absorption rates, lots of new construction projects, and an influx of young professionals moving up from Hoboken and NYC Thanks for the info Robert, but if you want to 'make money when you buy, not when you sell', and place an emphasis on cash flow, then three reasons you mentioned don't appear to apply.  

@Evan Bellingar  real estate tends to go in 10 year cycles 5 is a little tight.but no one save a few ( watch movie big short) really saw the 08 melt down coming or thought it would be such a global disaster as it was....Were ORegon got hurt the most was in Construction... in from 1992 to 2007 there were an average of 12,000 doors being built in the metro area. that slowed in 08 and by 09 there was a grand total of 700 permits pulled... construction financing had froze .. and a great many in the trades went bankrupt lost their homes and are just now pulling out..

I got a college degree from business with real estate emphasis.  

Regarding appreciation, you are right that appreciation by itself would be speculation, but i believe that since farmland is a commodity producing asset that appreciation will be driven mostly by global population growth and not directly housing/local population growth.I'm not too familiar with the cash on cash returns yet but let's say the land is cashflow negative after tax/mortgage, is there a way to know if the deal is still attractive?

How does global volatility and demand for US paper relative to other fixed income options effect the long end of the yield curve? 

My question requires greater emphasis on the process rather than the figures.I have a completely paid off personal family residence home valued at $1 million.

Asteroid strikes Canada depressing it's Maple Reserve stocks causing a global panic in maple syrup prices.

The Dominican Republic and Panama have been growing at more than 5% every single year over the last 20 years, including during the Global Financial Crisis.