I didn’t raise the rent for the first few years, yet since have been inching it up. 

I also find that it's easier to raise money from local investors, if you become their go to person for investing in some far off land.

Hard money lenders will have a hard time raising capital to lend out.

You don't actually have to change the property, if you can raise the rents as is.

Hi Lynne,Gunshot alley is no place to raise a family.If you want to move quickly and move up to a nicer lifestyle, there are a lot of LARGE Multi-family apartment complexes in the area.Many will have pools, hot tubs, gyms, dog walking parks, Amazon Delivery boxes, and the freedom from having to cut the grass or maintain the structure, and best of all no property taxes to deal with--all in return for one monthly fee.If this is something you are interested in, go visit a few properties (after dark) and see if they "Feel" safe to you at night.https://www.apartments.com/santa-rosa-ca/Just my 2 cents!  

I was looking at value add in raising rents which are currently 20% below market and doing some upgrades to floors, kitchens and bathrooms. 

I have some good connections in Dayton and was born and raised here.  

My understanding is basically the same; they will not be able to raise any rental property values so our rentals can see no increase in taxes.

Raise Equity Capital, Stabilize Cash Flows, and pay dividends to your investors when the business is Net Positive.  

@Tony Sepassi  As mentioned, typically when you see people doing deal after deal in quick succession it is because they have a lot of cash socked away ready to deploy, not because they found some super rockstar deal that allowed them enough cash flow to save for the next one that quickly, although there are some great deals out there.As mentioned, my preference on deals are the value add deals where you may buy at a 5-6% cap rate (although that is very thin for anything that can't support on site, full time manager/maintenance personnel), but have the opportunity to raise rents and receive a 30% ROI on unit renovations, so typically 150-200/mo per unit.Most people going after 3-10 unit buildings do not seem to know the first thing about underwriting, or could care less about their return on investment.