Here, I cannot find any such equivalent w/ downloadable forms, any help would be welcome. 

In our area the manufactured home would cost less than an equivalent stick built for the type of units we were looking at (1200' SFR). 

If you find a property with a 5% cap rate, and you assume 4% appreciation on the asset (averaged over time), and you borrow 75% of the purchase price at an 8% rate (I'm using that to show it can still make sense), your compounding annualized rate of return is closer to 11% over the next 5 years.And if it appreciates at an average of 5% over the next 5 years, your annualized return jumps to 14% (the loan causes this anomaly where additional appreciation of just 1% will have that effect, which is why it is aptly called leverage).What's even more outrageous is that your tax-equivalent rate of return is going to be another few percentages higher (depending on your circumstances) because real estate is generally a very tax-friendly investment.Of course, you won't hear this from most financial advisors.

The upgrades help justify in their mind that they are getting something for the rent increase, plus the fact that they cannot find equivalent housing elsewhere. 

They could also require a SEPA (or Texas equivalent) or a traffic study.

If that is the goal and lets say owning or renting an equivalent property would cost you $3000 a month or what have you, you are doing great.2) solid prospect of rent increase and appreciation with manageable capex.

I am bit disagree , if we make CPI doesn’t include owner equivalent rent, CpI is already in 2 percent.this bogus owner equivalent rent that causes the data seems to be bigger , in other word Fed is screwed up in their own methodology to count inflation 

Say you want two years of cash equivalents for live if expenses.  

There are those who are more speculative, but by and large cash flow is the main aspect and it is usually analyzed with something roughly equivalent to the 50 percent rule.I have a "C-" class property as my first investment and it cash flows nicely.

In addition, she could pay him the equivalent of 1% interest on the loan for as long as the mortgage is in place for keeping his name on the mortgage.Are there other options we are not considering?