I am unfamiliar with the aspects of this and would really like to educate myself with this before I take on anything.

I'd rather keep the personal aspect of treating people like people than remove it and be all about policies.

Split everything down the middle and see where it takes you.I actually disagree with this approach...Part of running a business is having as much control over each aspect of the business as possible (even if you delegate the actual work and don't do it yourself).

In addition to focusing on the physical aspects of your property, I would also focus on the "process" of the appraisal, which several other people have already mentioned.Find those sales comps that support the valuation you are looking for and share them with the appraiser. 

Surprisingly, most agents are not investors in Real EstateAssess their know how of the financial aspects of the investment i.e. how well they can assess an investment property.

Look at it from a financial aspect only.

Now to focus on this aspect.

You have one side of story. landlord however will be less likely to lie to fellow landlord and I weigh landlord references over all credit reports, and tenant provided information etc. perfect credit doesn't really matter if the last landlord told me the applicant was a nitpicker, always late with rent, dirty, or [insert nightmare issue here].please be sure to reference the screening primer to make sure you have all other aspects covered:http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2011/3/31/screening-tenants-primer/

This is the one critical aspect of REI that is often not spoken about: business models and systems.

This is the single most important aspect of real estate investing.