Similarly, if you're the riverboat gambling type, you can try looking into an equity deal where the buyer pays you X% of final sales price and/or a percentage of rental income if buy & hold.

Odds are this scam was just after your contact info for spamming purposes rather than looking to actually come to your house, particularly since they posted in several different cities.  

The gamble is whether the annual loss on the rental scheme will be mostly covered when I eventually sell the condo.  

What do they care if I buy poorly and lose my shirt down the road.Again, just following what the market and others are doing sounds like gambling , not investing.

I took gamble needing to get  the rent coming in and almost 4 years later they have been the best tenant.

On top of that you should know exactly who is going to buy or rent it from you and all the terms of the deal.Real estate investment is not gambling.  

But I have read and feel that that is almost like gambling.

If not, are you just looking to gamble?

This is a great place for everything real estate without a bunch of spam.

I used to live near Pasadena and absolutely LOVE the charm of all those historical craftsman homes, especially the Gamble House ... unfortunately, this was before I became a RE investor.