Great REI book to learn about financial metrics is 'What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow' by Frank Gallinelli.  

Bedrooms are the key income metric for student housing.

when you could take the same 40 to 60k buy a nice 130k home in Indy and call it a day and not go through this trama.. a lot of it though is the investors for some reason they think COC cash flow is the number one metric in owning rentals.. its part of it but not by any stretch the whole reason to buy a rental.. its IRR long term that is the metric

FYI, I've just published a sequel, "Mastering Real Estate Investment -- Examples, Metrics and Case Studies," which provides additional examples of the metrics in "What Every..." as well as four detailed case studies: single-family rental, re-hab project, apartment building and strip center.

While I agree that it's vital to cash-flow, from a metrics standpoint, you will actually perform worse on a cash on cash and IRR perspective using a 15 year versus a 30 year.

I invest strictly for cash flow thus I purchase property according to that metric. 

With any type of pay for performance I would worry about getting the right mix of performance metrics.

Hello BP,I am looking into buying mobile home parks I was wondering what metrics do you use to determine a good deal with this investment strategy?

How do I determine my metrics?

Another metric that you should use to determine how easily the property can be financed is by using the Debt Service Coverage Ratio.