I live in South Florida and it's basically cooked down here so I have been scouring my state and found fairly promising properties under or around 250k but it's 5 hours away from where I live?!

If you're using regression to predict how much a market would appreciate by I think that would be a much easier regression task then predicting how inflation would increase the price of a gut rehab (increased parts and labor prices due to increased cost of manufacturing and increased cost of living respectively). 

Unless you live there and are up for it, you’re going to need to find a great property manager. 

For example, I bought my house 10 years ago at auction and have rented it out and lived conservatively there is only 100,000 left on the note.

I STILL live at home and my parents are urging me to get out of the house but I don’t want to make a big financial mistake and purchase something out of emotion.

Live and learn.  

I'm planning on purchasing a duplex down there and renting out one side while living in the other!

I'm a house hacker here locally, doing a live-in reno on one currently.

Firstly, you'd want to make sure that once they do move here they have a place to live -- their own housing and personal finances comes first.

I live in Roanoke, work in Blacksburg, and invest in Christiansburg.I'm interested in Buy and Hold properties in Blacksburg and Christiansburg.