Only advice I can give to anyone here reading this. DO YOUR RESEARCH!!!
That is the key. RESEARCH.
It really doesn't take a lot of poking around here in bitcointalk hardware to narrow down your choices of hardware.
Then again at this point no one should be spending a few thousand on mining hardware. There is no upside to mining under the Petahash range.
At this point home or small mining is dead and people should avoid it at all costs. Potentially owning BTC by purchasing it and holding it seems to be a good gamble but again only if you are willing to lose it all. NEVER invest in Bitcoin be it coins or mining if you are not able to lose your entire investment. Many people have lost as a result of AMT and other equally shady outfits in hardware, cloud-mining, exchanges and pools.
While I would not start mining now from scratch, there are plenty of people still making a profit from mining well under a petahash.
You have to be smart about it and recognize that profits will be small. So do it for the love of hardware, as a hobby and to support the network.