@Jim BrandtBefore talking about "losses", let's examine the economic substance of this proposed deal.For her. 

Everything looks good when it’s on the other side of the fence but upon closer examination you usually find an unexpected issue that you didn’t plan for or have never really given any thought.  

So you want to make sure that everything is examined before committing to anything. 

Arturo Borges if you have a hard time getting in touch with the particular municipality and the correct contact, I sometimes go to the building department very first thing and wait to talk to the plans examiner or permit technician (especially if it has been in process for a few weeks)

The article made me stop and examine if I was really working on my business or in my business.

It is important to be able to analyze the trailing 12 month financial statement of a property and take a deeper look at the loss to lease by examining the rent roll.Ideally, you are lucky enough to have an excel version of the rent roll provided to you by the broker or the owner you are interacting with on your potential acquisition (or.. if you or someone you know is developing a character recognition software that is able to read a PDF version of a rent roll and convert it to a nice, clean excel version please let me know!).

Beware there are quite a few older (1960s - 1980s), small multis (8 - 20 units) on the market recently which look like values until you really examine the operating costs in light of the current (and potential) tenant populations. 

However, I also look at expenses per unit (as a secondary examination), to see if there is anything out of order (e.g. market insurance is $200-$300 per door, and even if the overall expenses are 50% of Gross Income, but insurance is $420, than I look into it.

But seriously, i would make sure that before spending a dime, that I would really examine WHAT it is that I Need. 

@Michael ArreolaEnrolled Agent requires completing 3 examinations related to taxation.