Spot on!

I think your assessment is spot-on, and scottsdale is a tough one to make work with lower-end stuff, and especially SFR.  

You are missing the most important thing you can buy yourself,an education.You need to meet with professional wholesalers who have been doing this successfully for some time and ask them how they do it.Apprentice yourself to them for free doing their ground pounding work learning the business as a young college student intern would.Learn how to put together a large list of cash buyers and flippers who need the properties you find to sell them.Learn how to carve out a good territory to farm that has several homes sold in the last two years for top dollar prices and sold the fastest (less than 30 days).Learn how to use postal workers,utilities people,and others to spot bad houses that might be able to be bought cheap.Use high school students involved in sports teams or band to seed your farm with cards and fliers door to door at every property and give them a tax deductible donation to their groups.Promise them a bigger wad of cash if you sell a house they bird dog for you(tax deduction!).

I am interested in installing a canopy-type structure over the parking spots for two reasons: 1) personal convenience while I owner-occupy; and 2) provide something that will differentiate the units to tenants (covered parking is nearly non-existent in the area).

This could come from an investor that gets in a tight spot and needs the money (which is why you don't admit investors that can't afford to have the money tied up for the long haul) or it could come from a buyout strategy where you take control of the entire property. 

- Ola There might be a few people around here who object if you are insinuating men need to show wisdom any more than women do, but your overall point is spot on! 

In some cases, if the property is unusually small and if the setbacks are far, the setbacks can potentially eliminate any buildable space from the property.One of the tricky things about vacant land is that some of the biggest issues aren't easy to spot at first glance, you have to do some digging. 

That seems to be the sweet spot here.I don't like 20k mind you, and I advise against it because of the fixed costs and low value of the collateral.

It was in a great spot, and I sold it before I got into investing, darn it!

As of right now Im trying to learn and one way is Im trying to see if I can spot good deals.