I have no desire to lose money monthly to gamble on appreciation, if I want to gamble I'll buy a lottery ticket.  

Usually it's a category like 'retail', 'warehouse', 'medical', etc.Are there certain traits or characteristics for a building to be deemed medical?

My question is this: How do you organize/summarize location characteristics (i.e. crime, drugs, schools, unemployment, population growth, etc.) for each of the properties that I have found in a way that makes it easy to compare and contrast those properties? 

I feel the market is gambling.

My recommendation would be to look at surrounding communities that can provide you a good balance of both investment characteristics.  

They tend to have affairs and gamble.

I don't want to gamble that I'll be able to rent it out at the higher rate.Thanks Frankie, At this point I can't tell if there is any value add stuff, because I've only seen the outside which looks alright.

I also gambled on very bad section 8 and lost thousands.

.$10k/year in negative cash flow verses your appreciation....your gamble and your call.

Even then each market has different submarkets with their own characteristics and revenue/expense structures.