Even then each market has different submarkets with their own characteristics and revenue/expense structures. 

In this situation we would be making frequent trips to the property. 

Take hedonic regression as an example, with data on prices and property features, hedonic regression allows you to treat property as just a collection of characteristics, and estimate the price of those characteristics individually. 

The properties can look ugly, but I would shy away from bad parts of town as you'll have break-ins frequently. 

@Jake Wernitznig buyers frequently don't factor in the costs of landscaping new construction.

Is this a frequently used tactic?

We were looking at it more for the flexibility of looking at a lot of properties frequently, MLS access and being able to continuously put in offers without exhausting an agent who has other clients to focus on as well.  

@John Moran,There are number of active investors as well as service providers who are frequent contributors on this forum.

The Property Assessor's office is nearly always the legitimate source of information for identifying all characteristics, especially bed and bath count of a respective property. 

Look at the destination where your family would want to frequent.