What are the top books that have influenced your business and decision making in 2018?

It is a non-threatening question, and can lead to them telling you a lot more details about their opinion of value based on their motivation, how realistic they are about the condition of the house vs. comps, whether or not a family member or friend has an influence on them, etc.3.

Having student loans should increase your credit, not hurt it, assuming you actually paid them when you were supposed to.One of the easiest ways to boost your credit (beyond beginning to pay what you owe), is to go and pull your free credit report (I believe it is https://www.annualcreditreport.com/).

A non-used card does not help very much, but a card that shows solid payment history does.Whenever you're trying to influence your credit, you should research how to actually do it.

So if I were to count the upstairs that boosts the house to 1,022 square feet.  

Than this will boost you WAY ahead in your investing timeline.  

Check local ordinances on the requirement for one unit to be owner occupied, I believe some areas are waiving that to boost their housing supply.

With the mill opening back up and 120 new jobs headed that way, I think it's ready for a moderate boost.

Not to invest to much because in the end as long as you have the essentials a granite counter is not going to influence a renters decision to return.

Proximity and identification of higher worth asset pockets becomes difficult/volatile to predict.Political environment and societal expectations that can be borderline ideological with regards to the aboveIf the crime does not get under control (see the above thoughts on education, gini, poverty, etc) this will weigh on perceptions and asset values for years to comeOn the upside:Indy is positioned well as a logistics hub which fueled growth, and it has a reasonably diversified economy.There is access to high quality higher education in the area.I will not invest in Indy although I did look at it awhile bJim, It looks like you're letting emotions and ideologies mixed in with some anecdotal experience influence your perception of the market.