Your comps range is way too large, a $1.5M spread! 

My way of thinking was I get the house under contract, take out the loan to make the mortgage payments, and then on the resell of property ideally I'd want a large enough profit to where I can repay my loan and still make a profit. 

I ran into this situation once also. turned out the house I was trying to find was built on the same lot as another house. the owner owned a large lot and built a second house on it and somehow the county wasnt tracking the second home!

Large land plots are selling quickly and for good money.Then I occasionally run across houses with large land plots, which are going for less than the value of the land alone. 

One of my companies is a licensed general contractor and we specialize in working with investors...we support an existing large rental portfolio but also work with self-managing and BFF investors on remodeling and renovation projects.  

In my opinion, I would use the capital as a large down payment, or cash purchase.

Now that, coupled with appreciation, might be a strategy in itself for high income individuals, but if that's not a large percentage of landlords, ...like I said, expect a sell wave at the smallest sign of economy trouble or appreciation slowdown.6.

@Julian Joseph - probably lots of recent HS grads and others in college that could benefit greatly avoiding leaving college with a large student loan in the first place.What the heck happened? 

Charlotte is a large city with plenty of business.

It's easy to say you should raise everyone's rent a large amount, but that can be a tough thing to do to families and you would need to take into account how many tenants might leave with such a sudden increase.