extract from article in SfGate (KTVU website):"The average asking rent at buildings with at least 50 units in Oakland hit $1,925 in the third quarter, up 19 percent from the same time last year, RealFacts said.

sorry @Bob Bowling everyone else on this thread seems to understand what has gone wrong here and a meaningful solution has been proposed.

Venture capitalists may be projected as parasites on their image, but it certainly is one of the best ways to extract money.

@Gary WhiteYou will not likely find someone local with any meaningful expertise on the topic. 

Once we isolate the area, we extract ONLY the seller/property info on the ones that do not have a mortgage.

Comparing a four-unit with a six-unit is not going to be meaningfully different from a strict operational sense (let me know if I'm way off base...).So basically, if you are purchasing for cash flow, the analysis can be very similar.

But if paralyzes you from taking risks and living in a meaningful life then I can definitely see how knowledge can be a curse.I sat down with one of my hard money lender’s a couple weeks back who has become a friend of mine and I saw on his wall a picture of the ship leaving the harbor.

Real estate investing is local, and what happens in one (or many) markets is completely unrepresentative of what happens in other markets.For example, if California and New York home values dropped 50% and the rest of the country increased in value, it's probably safe to say that real estate prices decreased on a national level (since CA and NY have so many high priced houses); but that wouldn't be a very meaningful statistic to investors given that the other 48 states had improved.If you believe that every market will see a decrease in prices and more foreclosures, that would be meaningful to investors; but I can't imagine anyone truly believes that to be the case in 2011 (do they?)...

Value add deals where a seasoned operator can extract value others have missed.

.$100k is meaningful for a coastal project, so there's no reason you shouldn't be able to get in the game in a meaningful way.