Ben, as I said, it's not always apporpriate in every deal or in every market, if that is always your approach you might starve to death. :)

INSTALL MULCH IN THE SMALL FRONT FLOWER BED:

Do a market survey of the market rents for the same bed/bath in the area to make sure what the market rents are.

I own a 4 bed/2 bath approximately .6 miles from a state University with 31,500 students.

Each side is 1100sf 3 bed 2 bath.

We decided to buy a home with 2 bed room.

Here is this info:3 unit property - fully rentedAsking price: $99,900Unit 1 - 2 bed, 1 bath, $500Unit 2 - 2 bed, 1 bath, $500Unit 3 - 3+ bed, 1 bath, $800Taxes - $4,105 (2012)Owner pays sewer and waterTenants pay electric and heatAll separate utilitiesNote - I plan on adding a few properties per year and will certainly be hiring a professional property manager from the get-go.

I dugout the estate papers and although my father died more than two years ago I found the paperwork and I remember now that she inherited some IRAs and several PODs of significant value, payable on death which was outside of the estate and went directly to her.

Can anyone offer advice as to what criteria to use when building my list (house type, # of beds and baths, year built, with or without mortgage etc.)?

But given that unfinished space is a lot less costly than finished space, I can't imagine we give it the same amount of "clout" as finished space.Yes, it certainly isn't a life-or-death concern...but given that I could argue that my square footage is under 3400 (only finished space, not including garage, not double counting stairs) or I could argue that my square footage is nearly 4500 square feet (including all space plus garage), it makes it pretty tough to analyze my price-per square foot building cost.For example, if my true costs to build this house is $325K, that means my cost per square foot could range from $72/sf to $96/sf!