This translates into being able to pull more money out or allows you to buy maybe a few bucks higher. 

For example, if you have an apartment that trades at a 5 cap and you increase the NOI by just $5,000 a month, that translates into an increase in value of $1,200,000 ($5,000x12/0.05).

While it's still rough, it's not far from improving areas and revitalization efforts.While that was definitely a factor, it's still a gamble if the city improvements will translate into appreciation for me.

. $10,000 worth of labor translates to $10,000 worth of contribution).

This should translate into much higher cap rates when buying. 8-9% is far too low for this class of property.You should also have the seller remove their relative before closing to avoid a fight.If it's too late and you have committed you are probably in for a financial struggle.How much are you paying for the property and have you allotted a minimum 50% for expenses.

@Aroldo VillarrealI don't work much with houses that have slab foundations, so I am not confident the rule of thumb translates. 

I can also look at it from that survival perspective that you had talked about which translates to me they still need a place to live so if they have a chance to move into these rental properties and the finishes inside are built for a war zone type of situation although cheap materials maybe that would be the answer for the insides to be made almost literally bulletproof so no matter what goes on in the home the turnover might be fairly low if and when they do happen to move out so that alone would cut down on the costs and if those neighborhoods can be section 8 housing then part of the assets already protected by the government and that individual even though they may not be able to pay rent on time perhaps the turnover or vacancy rate wouldn't be as much or as high.

Curious if this resilience of the Self Storage asset class can be translated to other assets like Single Family Rentals (SFR) and Multi Family Rentals (MFR) or is this resilience only for Self Storage and in the case of recession, SFR and MFR suffer? 

And if you figure that the real estate market is going to continue trending up with more volume, then maybe that translates into perfect timing to do something like this.The only other comment I'd have is that if you are putting in most of the money or a big chunk of it compared to them, why are you not getting a say in certain operations?

My wife is my translator in this case and she failed to tell them...In any case, this is my plan.