I also have to determine how much my budget is for the property.The realtor informed me that it is advisable to have a pre-qualification before I even start looking so I could scope on the price of the properties.

It is not my responsibility to minImize my profit, supplement someone’s rent, or in any other way be responsible to provide low income housing.   

it sort of depends if your property is an A or C property  on an A you should almost always go with new stainless steel In a dilapidated apartment with low rents I might throw in a used $50 appliance and if it breaks just replace with another as repairing usually costs more tha fixing  Nowadays you can get a new stainless stove for $400-500 so you might as well.

A good market for me includes at least 1Million population with low unemployment, good jobs, cheap houses and business friendly and fiscally responsible city / state (check their credit rating).

Esmir's info, even if it is no longer consistent, is still a good low-end for me to come up with some range estimates. 7-10% below asking sounds great to me, hopefully there are still some of those left to grab.

So, we need something that has low payment of installment even though the interest rate is little higher.

It would seem to me that most subscribe to the philosophy that rates will stay low indefinitely, in part because that's the new precedent, but also because the Fed has to keep them low to keep payments manageable on our national debt.

I would say hotels are direct competitors for me and if my prices were much closer to even the low end hotels/motels my first timer guests would have probably stayed there because they are more comfortable in a hotel until they get used to a private room Airbnb.

When they give you a rent range, understand that a single family home is on the low end of that range, a townhome is in the middle, and an apartment is on the top end of the range.  

Is this a low ball offer or is it reasonable ?