My agent would send a quick email that said nothing more than "I have a cash buyer interested in 'x' property for 'y' price.

This means the agent should know that a bathroom adds $X in value in a certain neighborhood or a garage adds $Y in value in a different neighborhood. 

Who's only charging you 4.32%/y for 30 years for an investment loan?

Thanks,Example in Excel...Database for neighborhoods, metros for example 'San Francisco' will have 19,000 properties from past 3 years:Street Address & Sold priceSold On: DateZestimate; Rent Zestimate; Beds; Baths; SqFtLot size; Type; Year Built; Last Sold:TextParking; Cooling; Heating; FireplaceINTERIOR FEATURESe.g. lists all features (Y/N) Heating type, Cooling type, Basement, Attic, Flooring type etc  etc etcWith this you can see if your deal is better/worse on average on the features in the surrounding neighborhood... and where there could be potential to add features

I want to get more into real estate investing (looking into buying my first MFR soon), but I'm also concerned about how this will effect my purchasing power down the line.Okay, i know that's a pretty general statement, so I'll post a more specific hypothetical scenario:Lets I'm 29 y/o and make 100k/yr right now in Los Angeles. 

Anyhow, I'm a married 34 y/o with two beautiful girls (1 & 2) living in the Green/Uniontown area and have been investing in SFH's for the past three years.

@Eric Y., are you still open to doing deals with silent partners?  

You know we don't have the whole picture here so it's impossible to give a complete answer.If the seller doing the short sale has a VA loan they do an appraisal on it.Based on the appraisal the bank can only take a certain amount for the property.As far as closing costs with some sellers loans they absolutely are not allowed to pay for the buyers closing costs.It is a function of the servicing guidelines of the loan.The servicer generally has guidelines that are approved in servicing the loan.Anything outside of that has to get special approval from the investor who own the loans or the master servicer if it's a pool of RMBS etc.My experience with short sales is the seller has NO MONEY most of the time.I do commercial short sales now but did residential years ago.I would always put a special stip in there that all COSTS with the transaction would be covered by the bank and the remaining covered by the buyer.This took all obligation off of the distressed seller who didn't have money to close the deal.If you have a broker/agent that is not experienced in these types of deals the bank might have said we are not going to cover x,y,z.The broker/agent went back to the seller and said you have to pay xxxx.The sellers says we are broke and have nothing.The broker/agent has now dug themselves a hole they are trying to get out of.Not saying this is the case but I have seen it many times.The bank is the one usually covering all costs on a short sale.If the seller agreed to pay certain costs without the bank approval they made a huge mistake.You can sure for specific performance if it's an option in the contract but good luck getting any money.The way contracts work is generally printed contracts,then special stips and addendums supersede boilerplate pre-printed forms,and handwritten is given most weight.What is added to the contract has to be agreed to and signed and dated by both parties.No legal advice

If you factor "y" for the rehab, don't adjust that just to make the higher offer work.

In short: you rent a place for $X and then turn around and rent it out to someone else for $X + $Y, pocketing the difference.