@Steve Romano go to trulia.com - put in address and scroll down the addresses page - a crime report will color the mapped area surrounding the address in green (good), yellow (decent) or red (bad).

*********************************************B) 3 Duplexes - two story, 1990's construction with roofs less than 2 years old, HVACs less than 5 years old,, each side is a 1000 square feet 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath unit - $345,000 (or $115,000 each).  

Quote is in the 2.25 to 3.75 per square ft to do this, which will be well into the thousands.Anyone had experience with this and are there most cost effective ways to clean this up?

What is the square footage?

i have a 2/2 condo(about 800 square feet at Northwest hwy and Abrams and it doesn't rent for 1100.  

After thinking about it longer she thought it may be better to move into our unit so she has the extra square footage for the extra money she is paying (I understand why she would want to!)

Looking at a property in east Houston, in a small area (say 1 square mile, but is outside a flood plain), where out of 13 Zillow listings, 7 are listed as foreclosure or auction. 

Now the zoning is commercial but this is very slow market for commercial Real Estate.Options:  1)Sell Outright  2)Let sit vacant until rented commercially  3)Renovate and create rental units   4)Building is about 3000 square ft with great road frontage on main Hwy

Thesale comps are helpful establish the market trends and determine what similar unit-mix properties are trading for per square foot, per unit and by yield.

That was a huge red flag for me to run the other way.I have to admit, I haven't had a lot of luck finding multi-family houses in neighborhoods I want to be in like you said, but our budget is 450K so that may open up more choices.