discount rate is often a guess (even with academics and investment professionals) because it requires assumptions that don't always hold true.  

As you can see, I am a newbie...any insight I have is primarily academic, as I have not done any real estate investing myself.  

In fact the independent academic research shows exact opposite: agents will depres your price.

While my academic background is marketing and finance, I knew that no one I would meet or draw to me cared unless there was something that I could do to help them.

I happened to be looking into the academic requirements for a CA broker's license and came across your posts. 

I'm sure you read 4 hour work week , if not you need toHowever, your generstion needs to learn everything is not always a passionI have much to share on thisProbably will write a bookI'm really a writer, academic by tradeThat forced myself to work against my passionI became a electrician heating and airI can do Sheetrock flooring tilingDo trim work I forced myself to learn intrinsic value so I would not have to pay contractors and eat profits that are so vital to retain in early stagesMost people are like meThey are just ordinaryThey can't create corporations and syndications of raising capitalYour generation has many good ideasBut the falsity of always following passionAnd not understanding of developing left hand in basketball is self defeating and propels disallusionment and neglects to look at one self long and hard in mirror 

The other students openly called it the Dumb Class, but in reality very few kids were there with academic deficiencies.

These rating are on a 1-10 scale and are based off of test scores, academic growth, college readiness and other available data.Unemployment RateHigh number of jobs usually equals a strong rental market.

I do have some background in construction and real estate from an academic and work perspective and would like to expand that knowledge through a local professional network.At this point I'm interested in all aspects of real estate investing, perhaps with particular emphasis on development given my construction background. 

If you are also near a university, look for properties that come up for sale after the academic year has started and will be a financial drain until the following year when they can be leased to students again.