Everyone thinks they can paint but there's a big difference between a professional paint job and a non-professional one (the latter usually actually damages the property instead of improving it). 

I would highly recommend to look somewhere that people actually want to live instead of where they have to.  

I realize I don't have the actual NOI, but that price sounds super high for the gross income you're stating in your narrative.

But I noted that places like North Tonawanda as @Pravit Jarriyapurttipong mentioned are actually outside of Erie County, it's in Niagara County, which follows the stricter landlord laws as New York State... https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/changes-in-nys-rent-la...Would you recommend sticking to Erie County boundaries for this purpose?

After more than 450 deals, everything just seems to fall in place, abundance of leads and lenders throwing money at me.I actually believe this is possible for a lot of people in our industry.

My recommendation is to have someone put in excel and show you the actual numbers.

The equity is actually what you are paying for the property.In this case let's look at the numbers that count,...the current numbers.You have about $500k or more in equity, which is buying you a property that's worth about $700k (I went with the lower PV. 

just a question - does '1 hour to resolve complaint' actually mean resolution of the issue? 

Our lender has informed us that we need 12 months of rental history to use the actual rent for financing purposes, or we must rely on the appraiser's fair market short term rental value.

What makes a property manager actually worth it— having more freedom, peace of mind, saving money, reducing risks, or something else entirely?