@Joe Burns I am quickly realizing that doing the work yourself is not always the best option.Does anyone recommend any particular estimating/planning software or spreadsheets to manage how you evaluate a house?

There are SOOOO many ways to get burned in a multifamily transaction that it is not even funny.

Not to mention you could have other damage (i.e. burn marks in carpet, etc).  

And pursue your passion, your dream, your vision, and feed your burning desire to succeed. 

I spoke to the appraiser who appraised my building 2 years ago when I was first going through the purchase transaction and he states that too many banks have been burned on using the cost approach with people paying too much or over-improving their investments which has caused most people in the industry to only use sales and income approaches to properly appraise a property.

As an extreme example, if the house burns down can you get out of the purchase agreement even if you may have been the cause? 

Thank you Jon Burns for the input.

It looks absolutely gorgeous (I got the Java Scraped Oak) and it has a residential and commercial warranty.

I ultimately want to buy something and live in it, and I want to stay in LA, so while being a good investment on its own merits is important, what seems to matter most is that it be better than renting.I'm sure that this has been asked/answered elsewhere on the site so I'll be digging in to see what I can find, but it's the most burning question on my mind the last few days, so I figured I'd package it in with my introduction as well.Cheers, and looking forward to getting to know many of you over the coming weeks/months!

Thanks much @Jon Burns. and @James Moore.