It needs to be a certain speed, certain smoothness to your due diligence and underwriting procedure, you really shouldn’t get too much into the weeds, especially when calculating monthly costs.  

We are (last time I checked) the second most affordable large metro in the nation, and yet the fastest growing city in the Midwest!

@Nathan FrostThe advantage - some will do 90% and 100% construction but recognize your signing a personal guarantee and will be paying 10-12%+ for interestBenefits of a private lender are speed to close, creativity in cross collateralizing etcThere are a lot of people on BP that think oh private lending is less strict than banks and easier to get.

Most general practice attorneys probably are not up to speed on these..

We look for fastest growing areas.

Getting up to speed to be all grown up in real estate like you is going to take all the help I can get!

Study names Columbus as the fastest growing city in the U.S.

You can house hack too while doing this too to really speed up how fast you can scale.Finally, I'd caution you against dipping into the C class neighborhoods.

(From a demographic perspective, Huntsville is one of the fastest growing cities in the Sunbelt, and this helps buoy rental demand.)Instead, days on market could signal that there are idiosyncratic issues with the rental itself.

Hey @Tom Brown - I'd echo @Paul De Luca and recommend @Samuel Pavlovcik, but also through out @Prashanth Mahakali...both are awesome Chicago architects and good friends.Things have changed with the City of Chicago, but probably not enough...whichever architect you work with just make sure that they are self certified which can drastically speed up the process.What neighborhood is your property in?