That price is way too high which is why I like to keep things controlled and in house.

You haven't given the most critical piece of info; without knowing what rent control laws are in the location of the property, no one can give good advice.

This is why people are now buying at 3% cap rates...they are seeing the out of control rent growth and they know that the revenue stream is growing--rapidly.Remember--cap rate has nothing to do with investment performance. 

While I can understand some of the desire for rent control there are other more practical and productive ways to assist families in need of housing (IE fix the broken section 8 programs around the country)  I would prefer however that all of you out of state investors get out of "our town" so that the prices can go back to normal for us locals, which should in turn help keep rents down a bit locally .....

Most markets will have just a couple of brokers who control most of the deal flow.

I manage over 100 doors that we own now here in the Chicago suburbs and I think it is mission critical that someone from management be there to oversee and do quality control on certain types of repairs.

.- I get 100% control over operational decisaions.   

These type of things you can't control.  

Your advise of backwards planning or reverse engineering is an excellent approach that becomes even more effective when identifying risks and mitigating those with various controls.

Locally There’s 25 rent controlled units that are 5 months old that you have to make between $37,000-$75,000 to live in and probably 120 units that are between 10-20 years old.