You worked your butt off to pay down your mortgage, got a little lucky with appreciation due to market timing, and now have $235k+ in built up equity.

But I then take that and plug in that address in to other tools like Zillow and the county records.

The lower expenses will lead to a higher NOI, and again, a higher advertised cap rate at a certain price than your actuals would reflect.If you have financials on a property, you can plug all that info in and determine NOI and divide that by asking price.

Even with my "lowball" offer plugged in.What are others thought?

We posted a 24 hour notice of entry yesterday and today my husband found the two cats as well as an ashtray full of cigarette butts (we have a no-pet/no-smoking policy).

Keep plugging away at paying down your debt and work on stashing away some savings as well, that way you have the capital to cover the upfront costs of buying a property when you're ready.

So Complicated answer simplified, MOST of the time lenders have the same guidelines/requirements as every other lender, and it's just a matter of how knowledgeable and "plugged in" the specific loan officer is. 

I see so many duplexes up for sale butt I know I can't get a HML  for them due to the neighborhood they are in.....  

You're dealing with contracts and you better know how to use them and cover your butt. 

I still plug numbers into an Excel sheet that I've been working on for the past 6 or 8 years for the final presentation, although supposedly Planswift should be able to generate reports suitable for presentations...