How Do You Choose Property Criterion?

[Billy Tegethoff]

Listening to the podcasts and reading various books/blogs/articles, I've noticed the phrase "meets our criteria" or some variation thereof used often. I'm wondering how you go about deciding what your criteria are? So far I've gathered that you need to know what you want to use the property for, but beyond that it seems like guesswork. Does anyone have a list they use, or some kind of boilerplate method for writing down your criteria? Can anyone recommend any good resources for determining what a realistic ROI would be in your market? I'm not even sure if I'm asking the right questions with this, but I've looked at a lot of different types of properties, and I'd like to form a better method of narrowing down the selection process. Any thoughts or suggestions are much appreciated.