Are two separate detached buildings okay or is this a case-by-case basis depending on the lot characteristics in combination of the size of the existing SFR?

The people that birddog for me have a very specific list of property characteristics that I am looking for, because I don't want properties that are white elephants (e.g., 1bd/1ba condos, 4bd/1ba SFRs).I also expect that they qualify the seller leads... they can't just hand me a list of property addresses.

How do I learn about the characteristics and numbers of an area like Schenectady? 

Where I am now is rural and we have adopted kind of a "take what you can get" attitude.So with that, what types of properties, issues, characteristics, location, etc are big RED FLAGS for you.  

Aside from goals, it comes down to a properties strongest characteristic. 

@Carl Mccrory Hey Carl, Here's a quick summary of how we gather and process our data here at AirDNA Every day we ping five million rental listings around the world and look for any changes to the availability of every calendar day over the next yearWe record any changes to the calendar and record some key characteristics such as length of stay, booking lead time, property booking history, reviews, host response rates, and much more.Our proprietary algorithm analyzes every new set of unavailable calendar days to determine whether the dates are a reservation or blocked by the ownerWe then record each unique reservation and determine the value of each reservation using the rates that were available the day before the booking was made.How the algorithm works: In 2015, we were able to secure a dataset of over 30 million actual Airbnb reservations.

In other words, if similar properties with similar characteristics in similar neighborhoods are going for an X PSF (price per sq. foot) then the property under question is similarly priced. 

Mail campaigns can be an effective tool to contact people who own property you would want, who share the characteristics of motivated sellers. 

Other apartments in the area rent between 700-975 but are attached to a house. the SFH I'm analyzing is on a .53 acre lot and has a basement. since it is a home rather than an apartment, would it produce more rent than an apartment with similar characteristics?

Fundamentally, pricing a fixed income asset is a function of variables like interest rate environment, loan performance history, loan to value, property characteristics, borrower characteristics, state-specific metrics and a laundry list of things you might want to include as variables in your model.