Even the best economists have a hard time predicting inflation and currency movements in the short term (less than five years)...something to think about.

People's past behavior is the best prediction of how they will act in the future. 

Edge of Tomorrow - ground hogs day of the action world, kept my attention but very predictable once you found out the day kept starting over.

It was predictably a disaster and the affects are still felt as mentioned they are a very poor country. 

They'll be right eventually, but Casey has been predicting economic crisis since the 70’s.A phrase that caught my interest in your comments was, “…the main thing is you can not rely on government to take care of you or your future.”

If you can not predict in your local market which areas will appreciate at a higher rate than the whole general market, then maybe you need to learn the market better.  

You can hire someone on Craigslist to help you out (offer to pay them $50 for some simple point-and-shoot pictures), but again... it's hard to predict how responsive and reliable a random stranger from the internet is going to be.3.

@Trevor Ewen@Shahram Zarshenas - If going by the CSI divisions for spec houses - what expense do you usually find varies the most or is most difficult to predict?  

Although the number of people leaving each year is relatively low, the rate of outflow has doubled in the last two years.”To boost housing supply, and thus lower costs, Doti said Orange County needs to be “more enlightened, with less NIMBY attitudes,” the not-in-my-backyard sentiment that fuels anti-growth activism.Housing will appreciate by 4.6 percent in Orange County this year, up from 2.7 percent last year, the forecast predicts.

I have found that during the owner-occupied period things are usually less predictable for us and thus you tend to lose bids more often than if you bid on properties that are in the extended period.