I would add a way of measuring your return on investment like estimated resale or estimated operating income depending on your plan to flip or rent.  

I dont live in the cheapest area of the metro by any measure, but I have a mortgage that is probably as cheap as many people in the midwest, because I chose to save a higher down payment, and chose to live in a house that was a lot cheaper than I could afford.

From there you can formulate an expected IRR and some measurements of risk. 

There are a ton of things that are going on here with the new rent control measure being pushed by the city to the West Oakland Development Plan underway as week speak to the Golden State Warriors killing it in the Finals! 

One site that can give you a general idea of costs for your area is www.homewyse.comAdditionally, as concerns standards of quality, that is almost entirely affected by solid communication: you and your husband being perfectly clear to the contractor as to what you expect, as well as he or she asking questions, taking good notes and measurements, writing a thorough estimate, and a detailed contract (min. 10-12 pages in my opinion).

Tell them to bring their camera, tape measure, mother in law and whatever else they need to make a decision but its too much to ask of the current tenant for a prospect to have multiple showings of an occupied place. 

It will be slow, but if I target specific things I can measure results.  

I like to break them down into Taxes (Actual), Insurance (Actual), Maintenance (12%), Management (10%), and Capital Improvement Reserves (7%) to find your un-leveraged return as a measure of the strength of the deal, then add in mortgage expense to find your Cash-on-Cash return.

Stuff like that to measure what is successful and not.

They dug up the new driveway, dug down to the footing on the exterior of the house and pushed the wall back into place and braced for extra measure.