I myself have a 1/1 apartment on Davis Islands near the hospital that I'm considering renting to traveling nurses.The problem with rental arbitrage is that you need leverage as the renter to negotiate assignable lease terms with your landlord.

To purchase this property would cost near $1m. 

If it is near the golf course, a house that you would build there would have a good chance of selling. 

Owned land is being sold at near building cost or a bit above building above cost (this is CA mountain building costs).  

It is near 2 schools and a church, which look nice.

Which are nearly synonymous.

Individuals who bought real estate during a recession have seen their property values and cash flow nearly triple. #2 avoid sowing seeds of failure in the good times - Many investors fail due to investing in prosperous markets.

I think there are two maybe 3 ways to look at this in my mind.  1) you go into it and bring it all up to modern standards but using that old charm to basically take what is there bring it up to modern standards and rent it out essentially I'm thinking cocktail bar or something trendy like that.2) most banks are on really good centrally located real estate if this is true, then I'd consider it for the dirt, plan to scrape the lot and go vertical with whatever the highest and best use is.3) a kind of combo of the two, if the lot is in a good location and its doable, pull the vaults or other "character pieces" out of the building, scrape the lot, and build whatever is best suited for the site there, but incorporate those historical pieces into the final designs.Is the site near a major retail area? 

Finding good deals is nearly impossible with the prices, tenant laws, and taxes working against us.Since you’re considering the Midwest, I’d definitely suggest keeping Detroit on your radar.

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