Do your homework before committing to ensure you’re getting real value.3.

The rental market demand is still extremely high and there are a lot of value add opportunities, you just have to be willing to put in the work.

All the value add I'm looking for will be zilch if I fall into the pitfalls you mentioned.

Do you know how do I input this value to get accurate numbers?

You many want to look at each upgrade specifically; how much value does it add to the property and/or is it actually necessary (say with the siding if it could be salvaged and just painted)? 

I wouldn't touch anything outside the urban core. if your strategy is to buy existing and old I'd recommend not to. as a newer investor depending on your liquidity look at build to rent development. building investment properties below market value by 25% and refinancing out of it to do it again. the urban core has tax abatements as well that are 15 years right now you can apply for. that means that taxes will be around $600 to $800 per year. there's cash Flow but the existing inventory market dried up a few years ago in the urban core. local realtors are going to push you to the trash areas like hilltop, south linden, etc because it's the only place numbers work. columbus is great, but remember a tenant who pays $1800 a month is different than a tenant who pays $900 a month. let me know if I can help any other way! 

I ending up burning some money for the things you described (NAR membership, brokerage fees, quarterly MLS charges, etc), just a lot of things I found I wasn't getting any value from, I decided to simply put it on full stop and take a year to really reallocate and figure out what I needed to do.

There are plenty of video reviews and Bigger Pockets comments on his website if you scroll to the bottom.

Have you ever read Amazon.com reviews and wondered how anyone ever decides which product to buy?

It would cost me $13,835 to get down to 6%, which would give the best value over the course of the loan.