Im trying to find the best website to determine the ARV.

3 BR/1 bath asking $170k.Taxes are $9,062 (although I saw at least one other figure on a different website, I went with the highest)Here are my assumptions:closing costs - $4,000rehab/initial improvements - $5,000 (this is a blind guess because there are no pictures of the inside available, but let's not focus on this number right now...)Rent - $2,000vacancy - 8% ($160/month)property management - 8% (the calculator I used (downloaded from BP) uses net rental income for this, so it's about $147.16/month)maintenance - $1,000/yearcapex - $160/monthinsurance - $1,000/yearwith a 25% down payment and 4.5% thirty year financing for the balance, I net a whopping -.82%.  

Then I found a specific niche / role / talent that I liked and felt I could get excellent at that would contribute to my partners success, ultimately helping my success.  

Essentially, I'd love to see one of these Investor Deal Diaries from you guys, the hosts, in a vlog format if possible.Not that you guys don't have enough going on already, but I think a lot of people would find it incredibly valuable because both you and Josh are great teachers and are excellent at making the process of real estate investing clear and more understandable.In any case, thanks again for the link, Brandon, and keep up the great work.

Typically if you have a large down payment of 20-25%, you can still find properties with positive cash flow in single family and you make money on the appreciation.I bought a newer Townhouse in home town Orangeville recently which is cashflow positive with 20% dp.I agree with Luc and Ming points, you have to be able to improve the property, either improve cash flow or increase property value with reno's.I have looked at multi family and retail net properties but have not found anything too exciting yet.

BiggerPockets is an awesome website!

It's not a problem with the concept of building a 2-4 unit property, the issue is all about the large capitalized expense costs vs. benefits.

Their website ( http://www.estero-investments.com/ ) advertises 14 to 16% return in investment.

Are you talking about a large multi family?

Sellers do not want to go through the time, effort and exposure, or tie up their property, in a transaction that has no chance to close.There are those extremely rare cases, that become real estate legend, in which a buyer with little capital, and no borrowing capacity, is successful in convincing a seller of a large, expensive property to take him seriously and is able to perform a high wire act of raising capital from a variety of unconventional sources and actually complete the purchase.