One only has to look at at the dramatic turnaround of GM over the past 7 years http://www.cnbc.com/id/102116432hahaHAHAHAHAHAAH comparing us investors to Gilbert HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA you have no idea what is involved in trying to get into the down town area

And compare to this one.

Next I call "any agent" and ask if I could meet with them over lunch (my treat) and ask if they could run comps to compare my numbers. 

Maybe it's the mild winters or the lower prices compared to the West and Northeast.Of those five cities, I would investigate TN or IN with only $40K to work with. 

Mainly because I admire the warm weather and lack of "winter" compared to the midwest.  

There are 5 comparables; many of which were sold in the last 6 months As-is.

i did comparables myself with mls

Also note that you can't use list prices, you need to look at actual sold prices - usually within the last six months, within as narrow a radius as possible to the property you're trying to value, on very similar properties - in other words, Comparable Sales, or "Comps".A realtor should be able to run this search for you in about five minutes when they're logged into the MLS, and they can exclude REOs and Short Sales (or include them) - depending on how you want the comps to be run.I recommend getting your hands on some old appraisals from a professional appraiser (and/or broker price opinions), so you can see the process they use to determine market value of a particular property.I also recommend making friends with a realtor who will "run comps" for you occasionally.

I really think going over stock market investments, or comparing the two  is touchy.

I plan on attending my first local BP meet-up this week to network with actual humans, and would love it if you reached out to say hello, and/or to compare investing notes.