Appreciation is always icing on the cake and it will happen eventually depends on the economy.

@Bill Haines Since it is more of an emotional purchase, I think the appreciation should be the cherry on the cake and the cake is all the great memories you guys will make in the house. 

Appreciation is only icing on the cake.  

My primary residences have brought me many hundreds of thousands of dollars in return from forced and market appreciation over the years, and that is icing on the cake in addition to giving me and my family a nice place to live.

I want to assume all potential homes will be average performers, and that way if they do perform exceptionally (or rather, if I as a host perform exceptionally) it can be icing on top of the cake.  

I'm not saying that way will be a cake walk either, because starting a business (which is what getting started in REI REALLY IS) is difficult no matter which way you slice it, but this method would get you much more respect from the RE community and greatly increase your odds of success IMO.

So you can have you cake and eat it too..

We cut sections of rigid foam insulation (scraps from another job) to the size of the hatch and glue them to the topside of the hatch like a layer cake such that the top of the insulation is at, or just above, our new (12" high) skirt when the hatch is in-place.  

They devoured knowledge like a fat kid on cake.

There are several high end cabinet companies out here that sell $100,000.00 kitchen cabinets (not even full kitchens with out: appliances/plumbing fixtures/stone/tile/floors/plumbing /electrical) like hot cakes.