I had 4 mounted to a bay window roof when I took over, Horrible looking, right on the main drag.

I have an appraisal done by the bank, but it mainly focused on the farmland and I think it undervalues the farmland improvements by a significant margin.

Going out to Bethlehem, PA to check a very promising 3BR/1BA single family home in an estate condition which need some rehab.Kitchen and bath need to be completely redone and the rest is mainly cosmetics.Can I assume about 30-40K for such work in Lehigh Valley?

I needed cf and was the main metric I invested for.

In most areas the main house will cover the entire mortgage and the back house will be all cash flow after moving out.

The main question to my mind is what is the starting point.

Maybe I'm being optimistic but I can't find any reason our house won't be worth 280K+ with the 20k in updates (we've already knocked out walls and done some cosmetics in the main level- what we're after now is hardwood floors and bathrooms). 

Hi,I am a Realtor, but my main focus is fix and flips.

While I acknowledge that economic strength is just one facet of a good rental market, it is a major factor and I wanted to share what I've found (the details of my methodology and raw data can be found after the various rankings):Top 10 best economiesProvo-Orem, UTSalt Lake City, UTCharlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SCChicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WIDallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TXKansas City, MO-KSLongview, TXLouisville/Jefferson County, KY-INSan Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CABirmingham-Hoover, ALThere were two main factors to overall economic strength that I looked at – how diverse/broad the economy is and how many economic drivers (i.e. strength) the area has.

@Scott Morongell I mainly buy in B/Cs as well but I haven't bought larger apartments yet.