But, these broad market studies are so large, they are almost meaningless, in the real world.Between glut of new supply in many "hot" markets coming online, a continually softening economic outlook, inflation over last couple years making day to day items feel cost prohibitive, many average renters are strapped and seeking lower cost housing.  

If you ever want to get into a tenant nightmare of costly potential litigation become a landlord, have the ac go out in Phoenix in July, and inform the tenant that you just don’t have the funds to replace it!.    

The best place to start is with a spreadsheet that has every every cost itemized. 

There's other items such as this where it may be helpful to talk to a CPA/EA for a little tax planning, especially since you'll likely get caught up in the passive activity loss limitations if taking bonus on a single rental property as I often see.It's also useful to mention that even if you do the cost seg study (I'm assuming you're doing one to be talking about this), you'll still benefit from accelerated depreciation in the form of shorter useful lives on the assets where you received bonus from.

Understand the fees involved and calculate the total cost for an entire year of management so you can compare the different managers.

So for the first property which will cost over $1 mil to construct, there will be stacked loans, essentially $280K will come from loan assistance program,( the name is not correct but the same idea).

.- Expected renovation costs $1MM.

It's the cash you put in that's your cost for the property. 

Yes we avoid custom work to help keep cost down. 

For these, costs tend to double across the board, especially for older buildings.