Pre-Construction out of state

After reading a few detailed posts regarding investments in pre-construction by iggyigette on the RD forums I decided to start poking around. I called 2 builders in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area and I emailed a realtor in El Paso, Texas with builder ties. The first builder in Abq was one that iggyigette had recommended. He told me that they only have a few units left and it turns out that they were in my price range (under $150K). He also told me that they do not sell/lease back the models. The good news is that they will be starting a couple of new communities in January/February, I will watch their website to see if they have anything viable in 4-8 weeks. Ideally, I am looking to put down $1K-3K earnest money and have a build time of 8-12 months. What I would like to do is purely speculative, I would like to sell the new home upon completion and cash out on the appreciation. Alb is currently experiencing ~18% appreciation. iggyigette did warn me that the rental market in Abq is a little bloated and I may have a problem renting the home if I need to take it beyond closing for a while. The second builder in Abq gave me a lot of good information but I waited until the very end of the call to ask if there were investor restrictions. They will not sell to investors and they informed me that the majority of builders in the area have the same policy. I did get some good information and the woman was very nice. I haven't had too much contact with the El Paso realtor but I hope to get a lot of details in the next few days. I am really itching to close a deal... but it has to be well thought out and it must be a good deal with a solid exit strategy for me to pull the trigger.