Value adds are increase rents, convert owner utilized sheds to tenant rentable space, decrease property taxes, shift some utilities to tenants, late fees, application fees.I agree with your statement about paying themselves more if they wanted too.

Buying for cash increases cash flow on ONE property but it decreases the overall amount of cash flow that can be generated on that capital invested.Leverage is risky and will take down BP investors in the next crash. 

A small decrease in rents (for whatever reason) would result in a lot of lost equity.

I looked at their proposals and found that it decreases my monthly cash flow from the investment quite considerably, so I’m trying to understand if its worth it or is it better to look for someone on the side to do the job for less.Thank you!

Interest are going up, but if we hit a bump in the next two or three years it'll pause not decrease prices and rents. 

@Carloz Gil, depending on where you are with the balances you carry, most times requesting an increase in credit limit will increase your credit score by decreasing your total utilization.  

I tend to agree that we'll have a few more good years although I do think raising interest rates will cause an increase in cap rates and a correlated decrease in value.

There is one new multifamily complex (The Nolen) that I know of that is still in lease-up, but I'm wondering if anyone has any insights or opinions on what they think the local area is like: are people moving in to downtown Clearwater area, companies moving in or out/number of jobs increasing or decreasing, etc.Any insight would be tremendously helpful.Ben

Housing inventory decreased 0.2 months from March 2017 to 2.2 months.

However, you won't see 50% decreases in rent like you would sales prices.