Think of it this way, would you rather learn about weight lifting/fitness by just randomly going to a gym and randomly doing whatever, or getting a book on it by A. 

@John MorganThis is like asking if quitting drinking soda will lose weight?

Steve, the lender will use the appraiser's overall "opinion of value", which for a multi-family will have already given significant weight to the income approach compared to the comparable sales approach, using the appraiser's judgment & experience of course.

I will tell you a personal story that changed my life.I thought I had all the time in the world but at age 16 in a span of 2 years I lost my dad in an auto accident,my grandmother,my grandfather,my best friends dad to cancer 2 weeks before my dad died accidentally and my family (brothers) thought we were rich off of my dad's death so sued us in court (how nice).I was only 16 at the time and my world imploded.From that I learned the value of TIME and how rare it is.Instead of living to make my dad happy I redefined what I wanted my life to be which took me awhile to figure out.I owned a restaurant later on in life (my 20's) and made great money but the hours and problems were a killer.My weight went up to 280 and my cholesterol was at 300.I sold it off and took a few years off and regained my health and sanity.I learned from that experience that money IS NOT everything.It simply is a vehicle to accomplish my goals in life but I am not a slave to it.I believe you are much more rich and powerful when you are centered.Being centered is achieving a harmonious balance in as many aspects of your life as possible.I know people who have lots of money but are miserable.The kids hate them and the wife left them.The job didn't end up being the end all they thought it was.I believe for brokers and agent we need to specify residential versus commercial.In residential YES if you are working with small investors buying dumpy little houses you will work hard for a little return.I don't do residential housing.The headache is big and the returns are small (a few thousand if you are lucky).In commercial most of my clients own businesses and operate during the week.They value the weekends off and down time just as much as I do.Now if someone wants to fly in and is looking at big purchases I will make time but not at the last second.I will also qualify them before spending any time with them.I invest and buy properties myself so I understand time and money.A broker/agent being HUNGRY is all relative to their experience and knowledge and level of deals they are doing.I love commercial because my sales price and commission checks are much larger.Smallest deals typically are 500k and most are in the millions.Selling a 30k house I would have to do 34 deals to do 1 deal at a million sales price.As you can see just like investors not all brokers/agents are equal (the same).I believe the problem is expectations going in from both sides.The benefit for a broker/agent is with a starter investor the sales price is small but you can grow in deal size with them over time.If you already have investors purchasing large properties you don't want to mess with the small deals.So it's all really about where you are at and where you want to go for a broker/agent and as an investor.We are all I believe looking for the same thing.Independence to live the life we want BY CHOICE and not BECAUSE WE HAVE TO.

I have also read a book on building tiny homes (which obviously is more complex than cottages due to weight / dimension restrictions but something we are considering due to potentially re-platting later if we can buy another property next to us)We've never built anything for scratch or ran utilities out and currently have to contend with only having a shared driveway (it's technically half on our property but goes into our neighbors backyard so they've been the ones to use it for years; there is no official easement but from what we looked up from their years of use it's kind of possession being 9/10ths of the law)Do you have experience building a backyard cottage / tiny home in Seattle?

No shame--its just that your center of weight would be too far back from vertical. 

Once you make the offer you will feel like a great weight has lifted.Do not worry about whether or not they accept it , but know that if you never make it it is guaranteed they can not accept it.Something I found that has worked well for me when available is to e-mail my offer to the seller.

This property was built in 1900 so all the knob and tube, window weights, and true 2x4's  were fun to see.

Before I felt like a 5 pound weight was sitting on my face.

However, for DC Metro, this would be tough to replicate and each risk has more weight/consequencesYou can still leverage other investment strategies here like BRRRR, but I am sure it's not as effective as doing in other states.