Appreciation is a core component of most investment returns in real estate.  

Research the different ways to invest in real estate find the one that interest you so you enjoy learning about it and consume as much as possible on that aspect; whether its single family house, small multi-family, apartments, commercial, buy and hold, fix and hold, fix and flip, local investments, out of state investments, self-managed, professionally managed etc. as soon as you have an understanding of all the major components of that type of investing start looking for a relatively low risk deal to break yourself in on to gain experience, but don't stop reading up and learning more and more about your chosen area.

Its not well presented in the class component.

You can then develop a more accurate CapEx reserves requirement based on the estimated usable life expectancy of major components/appliances.Hope this helps

@Tobey Porter vacation rental management is definitely more hands on than regular residential and there is a huge marketing component that is crucial to keeping your property's vacancy as low as possible.

With them, for $350 a week, we'd basically be outsourcing the entire direct mail component (with oversight).

Sometimes pool is a detriment.

I would also do a very thorough inspection so that you know what you are buying and the life expectancy of the individual components (i.e. life of the roof, condition of plumbing, electrical, etc.).   

It lets you think through the different components of your plan/strategy, and see what you are missing.

Enter all the components with their useful lives, remaining lives, and expected replacement costs.