Quote from @Robert Bell: As a private lender, we use reserve funds as a way to gage whether or not someone is financially ready to take on a real estate investment. 

Still new here- I know I can find the cap rate by dividing the NOI by the market value but what's the most reliable way of finding the market value? 

I've been thinking about how to best utilize my current residence.

My wife and I don't want to follow the scale up construction company model (we already did and it wasn't the best).We do a lot of labor on our projects and are looking in to the future and realizing our bodies will not hold out over time.

Welcome to BP and best of luck investing!

I would like to brainstorm and share some ideas with you, what is the best way to do that?

Reason I ask is the market rents are way higher in the area and the asking price does work with currents. 

My initial thought was looking into the best approach (if any) with this lender to get one of these two specs at a discount which would get one of them off their books.

All the best!

What matters is that you're about to buy a property that will help you offset your mortgage in a big way, shoring up your reserves that you can then use to buy another in a few years.