The increased depreciation deductions can offset your taxable income, including gains from the sale of the previous property.

Expectations for increases or decreases in the future?

Note that a few months after that date rates started to rise and quickly got to over double what I got on these purchases which would significantly increase the P&i.  

Increasing density can often get strong reactions from residents if they disagree with it. 

Not sure if I need to increase the fees.

I use the Bureau of Statistics to find figures for job growth and population increase.

In my opinion, you can make as much money buying cheap houses as you can buying expensive homes.Affordability is an issue for a lot of Americans so I will argue cheaper cities performed better over the past 10 years than more expensive markets / houses.San Francisco, CA, Seattle, WA and New York, NY are considered expensive markets.If I look at Zillow's price estimate for homes comparing 2016 and 2024San Francisco - Average Price of home was $1,145,000 and now its 1,262,000(Increase of 10%)Seattle - Average Price of home was $561,000 and now its $848,000(51%)New York - Average price was $561,000 and now its $766,000(37%)Memphis, TN, Indianapolis, IN and Clevlenad, OH are considered cheaper markets.Zillow is showing more appreciation in these markets over the same time periodMemphis - Average price was $73,000 and now its $149,000(104%)Indianapolis - Average price was $107,000 and now its $225,000(110%)Cleveland - Average price was $54,000 and now its $109,000(101%)Population increases and job growth are two indicators that result in appreciation.Two of the cheaper markets listed above(Memphis and Cleveland) are not increasing in population.

However at those numbers, you'd have to get a HML and increase value, then refinance into long term debts

There might be Some exceptions such as you did a bunch of repairs/improvements which increased the value of your home .

So I think moving the lot lines so the house and 2nd lot can be sold separately or even developed and also doing a moderate level renovation could really increase the value of this property overall.