At one point in my life I was an aircraft appraiser and was able to gain some insight into the aircraft market. However, I am not now nor have ever been an expert or a prognosticator. But let me try to give you what little information that I do have.

It seems to me that the question that you are really asking is ?Can I own an airplane for a couple of years for free??. Not at all a bad idea.

Had you asked this question a year ago I would have been very positive on the scheme. I would have also most likely have been wrong. (Three years ago I would have been right.) According to the most recent Vref ?Light Single? index the price of an average light single increased by around 10% from the first quarter of 2003 to the last quarter of 2005. Not bad! Then comes the bad news: In the first half of 2006 the average price dropped about 5%, most likely due to the increase in the price of fuel.

Today I would say that odds are against of getting all of your money back in two years, but again I could be wrong again. The 85% recovery that your buddies have given you does not seem totally unrealistic.

If you do take the plunge you should have a different perspective than most of us do who are buying an airplane to own. You gave a very brief description of ONE airplane. It may be exactly the plane for your purposes but you should take a totally objective look at it, and a number of others. You need to be looking for the airplane that you want to sell.
It should have excellent paint (Like New - $5000 retail, $3500 wholesale),
It should have an excellent interior (Like New - $4000 retail, 2800 wholesale)
It should have modern radios-2 nav coms ($1000 retail, $700 wholesale) and will help a lot at resale time.

You should bear in mind that each hour you fly the airplane will reduce the value of the plane by somewhere between $6.50 (retail) and $4.50 (wholesale). If you fly 100 hours per year all things being equal the value of the plane will be reduced by $4500 and $6500.

What ever you don?t put one penny in the airplane for lipstick. Fly it the way it is and maintain it well AND make sure the logs are current and complete.

Good luck!