I’m solely relying on Zillow, Trulia and Redfin. 

I really had to make a couple trips to get a feel and now I still really rely on my PM for neighborhood recomendations.  

So was Zillow actually relying on the active investors it had qualified to figure out the real world rehab numbers & ARV and thus come up with the "instant offer" more than their algorithm?

I put my career ahead of real estate investing because I rely on it to support my family.

You can not rely on your lease languageas it may be in violation of state regulations.

As for credit score,  I don't rely on set number but more importantly patterns that show up on the credit report. 

Your obligation is to your sons and yourself and this tenant’s behavior will cost your sons money; they are relying on you “feeling bad” to prevent you from forcing them to do what they should.

Do not rely on it for legal advice.

That just goes to show that you can't always rely on appreciation. 

In my specific market areas its about 125-50 per sqft to build but the market is selling around 250 per sqft for brand new apt's.It Sounds like the play in the mid west markets is to buy way below intrinsic value and do a repositioning instead of relying on the market value to give you equity slowly over time.