What resources do you use when speculating on the future of a town you're investing in?

Guaranteed payments is better than speculative payments.

., I probably shouldn't speculate too much on the status of the Midtown condos, but when I look out my office window or drive/walk through Midtown, there appears to be an abundance of condos which are already finished (within the last 1-2 years) and at least several new condo buildings currently under construction, each at different stages of completion. 

This is purely speculation on my part because I see a ton of investors from Texas going out to Midwest markets like Cleveland, Toledo, Indy, Kansas city etc to get better pricing.Perhaps Texas investors can weigh in on that market.Also if that market does have those prices follow up question; why are you guys from Dallas & Austin coming all the way to the midwest when you've got San Antonio right next door? 

@James Wise  Per your request.Coming out of the late 1800s most of the major west coast cities that we know and love like LA  SF  PDX SEATAC were all subdivided by the same engineering firms  at least SF and Portlandia were.. this led to land speculators in the day going out into the Western deserts and other remote areas.. buying what were large land holdings , Spanish land grants and other lands that were not govmit owned.. then in the day you could simply create massive subdivisions buy doing basic surveys off of the base and meridian lines.. which all of the west is surveyed off of... this is called section land.then create these massive tracks of lots.. some were like up in the apple valley, Lancaster,  Barstow type areas mainly 5 acre tracts.. and were done on a grid pattern.. streets in ( mapped but not built)  and of course spiraled out of a small little town off the railroad track or the few roads that existed in those days.. you took your map and recorded it at the county, county was happy they just got 5 thousand lots they could send out tax bills on..

@Russell Brazil care to speculate where in the DMV?

It's harder to do this on the smaller MFR end unless you have market appreciate, which in my opinion is speculation and more riskier. 

Predictable appreciation is not a gamble or speculation. 

Don't speculate on making a quick buck if they join the Euro-zone, housing prices don't usually jump on news reports like stock prices do.

But In this case he is moving his property after the deal closes and the likelihood of a due on sale clause being activated is anyone’s guess (I’m not going to speculate on that) but if you listen to @Scott Smith on podcast 109 he points out a lot of reasons as to why a LLC is way better protection vs. just an umbrella policy if set up and ran correctly.