I live 5 minutes from a suburban university campus and didn't really think about student housing.

On the other hand, there's been a boom over the last 15 or 20 years of new condos downtown and in the 3rd Ward, which are generally all pretty pricey, usually starting around $200k for a 1bed/1bath tiny unit and going up into the multi-millions in certain spots like University Club Tower where one 9000+ sq foot unit that covers an entire floor on maybe the 35th floor is appraised by the city at $13 MILLION!!!!

Some services like e-flyer and virtual tour sites also send us listings -- listings that agents and brokers input into those sites and agree to have their listing data re-distributed to us.

While I know this is kind of the universal axiom, keep in mind in the bay area cash flow was very seldom achieved and most people made money off appreciation, so that was a mindset that I grew up with.I am interested in looking for cash flow properties to buy-and-hold out of the bay area since cash flow is very difficult here, although you could have done pretty well if you bought real estate in the bay area about a year and half ago.

I've also reached out to some very helpful individual members on this site that are now my "virtual colleagues"... 

And in order to make those projected returns pencil-out they used very aggressive/nonconservative underwriting including very high leverage (above 65%), floating rate loans (higher projected return but increased the risk of catastrophic default if interest rates rose), financially engineered capital stacks (which increase the risk of a problem for the normal equity investors in ways that are similar to taking on more debt), very high sponsor split compsensation that financially incentivize them to push the risk-envolope etc.On the other hand, all the conservatively underwritten multi-family deals (low leverage, fixed rate loans, simple capital stacks, average sponsor split compensation) are almost universally fine.Another area having problems is in the riskiest strategies like ground-up construction (opportunistic)...because everything is more expensive than projected.

The typical 'what brings you to this area, what do you do for a living, anyone traveling with you, pets, etc' and then they usually want to know about the neighborhood and the proximity to hospitals, universities, recreation etc.

I think it was quite arrogant and equally condescending for him to assume that that which he himself perceived to be complicated, was universally that complicated for everyone else.

So the moral of the story, there is no universal methodical or quantitative system to use.  

and the insane taxes ;pPittsburgh has a few university and medical hospitals in the city so you have a varied choice of investment, from Student, low income, to professional.