We will be following the guidelines laid out in the Book on Managing Rental Properties very closely to avoid any fair housing issues and place a quality tenant.

In addition, I use high quality (not $8) surge protection power strips on my computer, TV, etc.I do not bother though on my rentals. 

Spring Valley works well for new investors because it has a balanced trade off of cashflow and quality of location.Are you planning to use cash or financing? 

Value comes in intangible qualities such as being well connected in the local RE industry to get results, aggressive marketing, and the execution (riding Title Co and Bank's arses to make sure it gets done).

Are their listings detailed with good quality photos?

The people I know in this area do not want to own any homes and this can improve the quality of tenant at times as they are looking at it as their home.    

As long as the cars aren't all on blocks, then that's not really an indicator of neighborhood quality. 

They clearly had expenses thinner than 50% in most cases so my assumption was, with a quality product (full renovation of all the big capex things: roof, mechanicals, plumbing), and in a decent area with good tenants, you can safely lower the expense projections under 50%.

The homes show you the quality of the work.

Some of the challenges I’ve seen here are in the early stages of building a reputation of quality student rentals and then keeping your pipeline of upcoming students full for when turnovers occur.