Paying market value to purchase an apartment right now is dangerous, and I am quite confident you won't have a repeat of the past decade.

@LaMiracle Schaefer - Is it a safety hazard or a danger to your property? 

Until then, any investing you would do would be pointless, and potentially dangerous.

Maybe if you had not removed it and it was dangerous or if you removed the deck and there was a huge drop off from an exterior door 

Check with several major insurance companies and get their list of 'dangerous breads'. 

This is all great talk and so forth but in reality and in execution this is HIGHLY risky and fraught with danger.. but here we go again a BP podcast and a bunch of folks who have no experience at this thinking they too can build a rock star team only to find out when they lose their butts that this is an advanced strategy for very experienced and well cashed up investors.to do this and make it sound like anyone can build a rock star team there are a lot of folks that are going to jump in based on those pod casts and books.. and the next thing you will see is:Help I hired this contractor in another state and he ran off with my money .. or the work wont pass inspection .. or my rock star realtor lied to me etc etc.All I can say is in theory yes..

As I move forward on my journey it is gentleman like yourselves that really help out and add substance and power to this site.

I know you can't really anticipate property appreciation (or it's probably dangerous to).

There are many dangers of being self-employed in any business.  

But, with lose cannons rolling around on deck, being on deck can be dangerous. :)