Private sellers i'd wager it could make a difference but asset managers don't care too much beyond 10%

According to HUD they did not find any health risk outside of some head aches, throat irritation and the like.The best way to do a preliminary check is to pull  out an outlet and look at the ground wire.  

First of all, I would recommend a preliminary meeting with ownership in which there are agreements signed.

Sounds like you are taking all of the correct preliminary steps to get started. 

I've paid an FHA appraiser to do a 20 minute preliminary, non official, inspection to catch things I may not, prior to the FHA appraisal.

I can throw a baseball into the yard of a house on the corner that sold for over 500k (bigger and nice).The property:SFR 1200 sf 3/1 with a weird layout (will be rectified in rehab)preliminary scope looks like 50k-65ksits on a landlocked parcel with a right of way and shared driveway across neighboring driveway.  

This is what makes this very tough for a homeowner to buy something to live in. as they get lazer focused and it never goes to sale. they waste time and energy chasing it.And if its LA if there is any equity at all you will have massive competition..For due diligence simply order a preliminary title report for a few hundred and that will tell you the story.. some auction sites will publish the TSG  but not all.good luck

It's really a personal thing which #s you look at first.I also use per unit (per door) as a very preliminary "is this worth looking at further" and cap rate too, though I've been seeing cap rates much lower in RI, at least for MLS properties.

We reached out to a pm to help us do some preliminary work before we flew up for our walk-through, he was really great in getting us up to speed on the market & showing us improvements he had done on other properties to increase rents.  

We ask what your FICO score is and run a preliminary number based on that.