Both times were forty-ish minutes of story telling / soft sale, followed by fifteen to thirty minutes of hard sell.

I still have a soft spot for the area though.

You have to get the right sale price, estimate your construction costs within a margin of error, properly account for all of your soft costs, hit your After repair value target, and then hit your rental figures when the project is done.Every single one of those line items impacts the next line item.  

It's pretty obvious that we are not in the worst of markets and a soft landing is possible.

"There will be no soft landing in China.

yeah it is 2% of your all in price, this includes purchase, rehab and soft/closing costs.

Essentially, I looked at the trees and never saw the forest.There is this soft side to evaluating a property that I am actually unclear on.

If the roofer walked the roof to check for soft spots and inspect chimney toppers, flashing, looked into attic, etc. then estimate will likely be closer to accurate.A roofer needs to have insurance and also any required permits to do the job.

So I discussed getting a loan on a commercial property (8 units) and he gave me a "soft" approval with values as 30yr fixed and around 4% interest.

Then find out what is the highest and best use that will fit into future desired zoning use for the city.Reverse your numbers out for hard and soft costs to arrive at what you can pay for the land value and meet your goals.