These homes were all SFH in good desirable neighborhoods, that I could sell on the MLS for retail anytime I wanted.

I would suspect you can find those neighborhoods right outside your $300k neighborhoods.

The 70% rule was meant more as a quick and dirty estimation on the fly to help you determine if you are in the neighborhood of a decent deal or not.

Lakewood is huge, and extremely varied- lots of different types of neighborhoods, some are quite beautiful.

Interesting side notes-1) the two current tenants are longterm 4+ years, but are also not clean and tidy at all.2) there are several very nice houses in this neighborhood, but the one next door is condemned (in tax default), and a house a couple blocks over has been destroyed completely by fire.3) Comps of SF and MF homes are all over the place in the area and it's pretty much impossible to get comps on this type of unit even going back 2 years.Any suggestions on how I should factor the current tenants, neighborhood, comps or empty unit potential???

My real estate agent told me that my property in my neighborhood could rent for 1500-1750 a month and my current mortgage is 1200 a month with insurance and taxes.

We plan to acquire 2 and 3 family rentals in nearby urban neighborhoods.

I question your characterization of the neighborhood.

To top it all off, we just won the "Curbed Cup Neighborhood of the Year" http://nola.curbed.com/archives/2014/01/02/the-curbed-cup-neighborhood-of-the-year-is-bywater.php Truly, music to an investors ears :)Feel free to hit me up Chris.

I wanted to settle on a target neighborhood that I knew intimately before I committed to rehabbing a project from start to finish.