So the trend throughout the shoreline, particularly the south shore of Long Island, is to jack these houses up in the air, and build a new, higher foundation below them.

He thought to himself, "Hmm, if I continue this trend, I will be making a lot of money." 3 years down the road, using the money he saved, he bought 3 other properties in the same neighborhood with the same amount of money, this time taking out a loan of $420,000 ($140,000 * 3).

If you LOVE research, and numbers, and spending endless hours looking for trends in your area, it's great.

(this was in Auckland NZ which is the hottest market in the country).  

I want to take care of him so he feels it is time well-spent, but also want to make sure I am not over paying based on market trends.

Hello Ryan, welcome to Charlotte - it's one of the hottest markets in RE!

Keeping your rental inventory up with demand trends can get expensive and it's usually better to sell and buy up than fix up.

Hi @Donald Dickerson, if your are keen on tracking your net worth, free software like mint.com is a pretty nifty tool for doing so and showing trends in spending, income, and net worth. 

Things are different from hood to hood but macro trends persist.It's way above my knowledge but it seems your numbers don't factor in inflation when you compare 2007 numbers to now!?

This ended up turning into a project which I have devoted a considerable amount of hours to in order to capture trend data for a few neighborhoods that I'm interested in investing in.