Development land in the DC area is worth a lot of money like a million to multiple millions an acre depending on the location and every heavy hitter in town would be after it. 

I think $300 sounds unreasonable to me in moving expenses to move across the complex, unless they hired people to move their heavy stuff.

@Robert Walden  student rentals typically rent at a higher rate of rent and chances are your competition isn't using coin ops in SF.  

Will real estate investing be considered competition?

Their cost/sqft is quite competitive.

In my area, duplexes are rare  with a lot of competition for them, so buying a SFR and doing a garage conversion makes sense AS LONG as you are focused on cash flow and not trying to flip or leverage into the next property.

Have you see that British show on Netflix where people design and build "tiny homes" and trailers for a competition.

Some are way shorter, some are a little bit longer due to an extended wait to get an available docket date.However, cost wise we have heavy property taxes (surely because we don't have income taxes), and insurance cost is a killer (flood zone, hurricane...).Also we have a very great land trust statutes.

You want to try and avoid to list during a season with a lot of competition unless your property is unique in location or cash flow..  

Given that many of the hot markets are so competitive and the prices on turnkey-ish properties have already increased in these areas, such that it is hard to achieve the 1% recommendation..