We live in a high appreciation area, not that I'm counting on that, but we plan on holding these properties forever.

Given that it is still all in the presentation of the offer that counts.  

And you can always give someone a rent discount for being your "eyes and ears" on the property, but that shouldn't cost more than a couple hundred bucks a month. reserves of $300/unit counted in expensesReasonable, but not an "expense," (i.e., shouldn't affect NOI/value).

After the period of time the bank requires to start counting rental income as income, do they use your NOI or your cash flow as the added income?

The house has 4 rooms but only 3 qualify as bedrooms as one has a window too small to count as an egress.My question is in regards to the basement.  

The 7-unit was an off-market estate sale so that might not count in this regard...but it's who you know right?? 

Also, there are no reliable comps you can count on simply because of the huge disparity between one transfer and the next along with scarcity of information sharing.A good tool that can give you an approximate value & help is the GIS system, most GIS will breakdown the land value and the improvement value.

Keep in mind that most banks will require you to have 2 years of rental income before they'll allow you to count that income when calculating your debt-income ratio.

Count me in Sharef.

@jg @JG Utley Count me in as well.