It is a very difficult area to operate in because of limited service providers, home quality, and the increase in supply, and big drop in demand. 

I had started by focusing on areas in the West End (Short Pump, Tuckahoe Village, Wyndham, Innsbrook & Glen Allen etc) looking for properties in good school districts where I could focus on attracting young families, looking for good school districts that did not have the down payment to buy in to the neighborhoods. 

Usually, those "super cheap" properties become money pits, especially if you don't spend the money to fix them up correctly or if they're just in a bad neighborhood that will attract tenants that thrash the place.

Key Trends- September was the last summer month but demand for MTRs continued to increase in most markets through October.- November experienced a slight downtick in demand, the number of leads received declined by an average of 4%. - December saw the largest drop in leads, the number of leads decreased 18% throughout our markets. - January experienced a significant increase in demand.

Along these lines, I am wondering if it is more lucrative to go ahead and increase the value of the property as much as possible now, rather than waiting until I inherit it? 

In some cases, you may start cash flowing right away, while in others, it might take some time to stabilize the property and attract reliable tenants.

Positive cash flow by increases the rents on the Mo2Mo tenants Lessons learned?

The entire property & casualty market is a mess at the moment with carriers being unprofitable across the board and many becoming insolvent or shutting down in states where they were least profitable and/or were not allowed to take the rate increases they were asking for (rate increases have to be approved by each states dept of insurance they don't just get to jack the rates up because they want to)If you are in a REIA reach out to some of the players there and see who they recommend.

Increase rent from $1050 to $1600.

If you can improve a property and increase revenue while decreasing expenses, the property increases in value.