Real estate is a local game in most respects.As Charles mentioned...If you lower your rents you will have fewer vacancies and if you raise them you will have more. 5% vacancy for larger buildings is generally an "optimal" target for most investors.

If it is a business, on the other hand, you need to focus on maximizing the value of your business entity and you do need to optimize your investments.

, in what areas should I look (ex, what kind of geo setting offers optimal returns on the inv frontier?)

:superman: I work with a Mortgage Broker who is very upfront about what he can and cannot do as far as helping people get the qualifing loans.I myself, provide some great tips and programs THAT we stand by for addressing your credit concerns.Really to raise your scores, mortgage brokers or lenders can (if they can be so bothered) to help you rescore(rapid rescoring) and get those fico scores at a place acceptable to a lender.I usually term our services, by credit optimization.

@Bill Baldwin  do you know any good local CPA/Attorney who can discuss (in english and charge by hour) rules and ways to optimize around gifts/inheritance taxes for Japanese citizens?

Same thing for getting a 60 month note on a depreciating asset; that falls into the sub optimal decision making category, then selling that car in month 61 to get a new one is a whole new level. 

One tip, you need to do the work as Bruce said, optimize the property in the first year, with the focus on the potential for after that, then you will find many gems. 

We are busy with good enough incomes that we didn't need to over-optimize, but these are still great investments either way.

I went into this hoping to find the optimal investment strategy for p2p lending.

The number of weekly expireds comes to around 50 on average so a fairly small list, and I am looking to put them on a 1/wk campaign for probably 5 weeks.Has anyone found a postcard service that is optimal for small batch campaigns that you can setup once to run for weeks?