New member from Houston, TX with a question

[Matt Nelson]

Hello, everyone. I am a pretty new to the site although i have read tons of information on here. I was wondering how most people analyze a deal...

I have gathered from reading thru BP that for SFH expenses used for cash flow calculations are as follows:

Principal
Interest
taxes
insurance
vacancy
maintenance

Now Local investment clubs rant and rave about only using the following:
Principal
Interest
taxes
insurance

If one analyzes a deal using the latter criteria the cash flow is much MUCH better usually about 25% CoC on most deals even into the 40% CoC or more depending on your financing situation.

What is everyone's opinion on this? I am competing with investors making offers on the same house but using a much different model which allows them to have a high offering price and beat me out of a deal.