@David Bell  smaller the loan the worse it is.. if your only borrowing say 50k  4 points is only a whopping 2k.. no one can stay in business writing loans for such little income.. not sure you folks really understand how it all works from the lenders perspective.. remember they are not collecting the interest the interest goes to the end investor ... they may make a small delta .. but they make their money on the fee's or about 90% of it...

Example: If my MAO is $54K (after ARV calc and rehab and assign fee) on a comp of $120K and seller owes $100K, that's a big delta and creates a short sale situation.

Taxes you should be able to look-up ... and adjust according to the delta between assessment and your offer (if offer is higher).  

The delta between the result of that calculation and your contract price is the field where your assignment fee resides.

(Surrey, Delta area.)

Sometimes we just cannot offer the same amenities as the higher priced property but the delta is a good barometer of the strength of the market.

To demystify all of the hype around geothermal (and make a more informed decision) the main thing to consider is this: Heating and cooling a house costs money between deltas ie: keeping your house at 72F when it is 0F degrees outside in the winter.

If you have very large deltas from that one wall compared to all of the others, then you are probably right about the insulation. 

I start smiling when I see $100K in delta between the seller's price and what it would sell for fixed up (once the property price crosses $350K that margin increases as well).

Not a huge delta but for a first rehab, the numbers worked out.