What are your objectives?

At the end of the day, you know your long term goals and objectives so I can't comment on if it's a good idea or not. 

In my case just getting started is the main objective. 

In regards to #5 I was saying it's a plus not the main objective. 

If your objective is to grow your portfolio, you are going to have to grind it out buying mom and pop notes before you can establish yourself as a notebuyer to any institutional holder.

It was the beginning of the no-money-down easy-money mortgage era (the application process might as well have been a pulse check), and banks seemed to have no objection to giving an inexperienced 19-year-old a ton of money to buy several 100+ year old houses in rough neighborhoods with just some signatures.

But I am trying to form a sheet/program to quantify and score syndication deals to make some of the evaluation more objective. 

If cash flow is the objective I would probably not recommend San Diego.

Functional Obsolescense: A term commonly used in real estate, is a reduction of an object's usefulness or desirability because of an outdated design feature that cannot be easily changed. 

@Rob Hartz It's important that you understand what your overall goals and objectives are and what you expect to get out of real estate investing.