Unfortunately our government has utilized almost every option available to control supply and demand and over the last few months we are noticing some strong indications of another slow down on the horizon.

Their general time horizon for exit is up to 18 months.  

They will say they just redid this and that etc. and expenses are only 35%.They say this to justify a higher number.What they aren't saying that if your time horizon as the buyer is a 10 year hold before selling then costs might look like this.Year 1- 35%, 2 - 38%, 3- 43%, 4- 47%, 5- 50%, 6 - 53% etc.35% is unrealistic but the point is over the 10 year spread your average expenses will be much higher than what the seller is quoting plus they want you to pay a low expense price today.

I think if I was you I would be motivated to communicate with lenders to see what I could do to secure financing, and depending on your time horizon, I would be interested in buying a place to 'house hack' as it is called.  

Some thoughts:- attracting better tenants through more attractive housing- longer-term, sticky tenants because of SFH (multi-family is much more challenging)- tax benefits from those with a W2- easier to manage slightly smaller projects without a sell horizon

I've been asking more questions about the properties, specifically about some discrepancies with the numbers, and the broker I've been using has been somewhat hinting at the fact that nitpicking every little detail is more in the due diligence phase than the initial intro phase.Of course I understand he wants me to make an offer so he doesn't feel like he's wasting his time and there is some money on the horizon for his work thus far, but I'm kind of stuck as to how to proceed.

As long as your ok w/ a 3-7 yr time horizon then syndications can be a great tool to generate tax advantaged cash flow.  

In all seriousness, all of metro PDX has been great the last few years, glad I’ve invested and looking for new opportunity even with macro Fed induced clouds appearing on the horizon.

The trinity study back in 1998 is the primary study that ran all the statistical analyses over different time horizons in the market and discovered that withdrawing 4% per year would give you a >95% chance of having sustained income for a 30 year retirement without running out of funds. 

I am from Michigan so I understand the dynamics of the Midwest and just can't justify encouraging a long-term investor from Florida to invest in Ohio if they have a 30+ year investment time horizon.