My partner and I have been evaluating like crazy. 

As we evaluate new deals, we also meet new investors who want to partner with us. 

With that said you need to evaluate safety, performance, cost and future needs before diving in.

We are going to evaluate and research what happens at foreclosure auctions and learn how many people are playing in this field in our market. 

I would monetize those items and see what it would need to get them all up and running and re-evaluate the deal that way.

Plus their service charge everytime someone shows up is how they make their money and the contractors know this. first visit is to evaluate ($75.00), next visit is to fix, but wrong part ($75.00), and so on.I have a suite of trusted contractors and repair people I have made deals with.

We just had a problem tenant give us a 15 day notice near the end of last month, did not pay their August rent and did not move out until the 13th of August.While we like to think we are Hard Butts', we evaluate each incident based on whether we think the tenant will move out when they say they will.

The "1.5 rule" mentioned in a post above turns out to be very similar to the "65% of ARV" or "70% of ARV" rules - that "1.5 rule" yields a "67% of ARV".But it does not seem to subtract out any needed repairs, which the MAO formulas usually take into account.As for sheriff sale purchases, property condition is a crap shoot - and you should usually expect the property to be crappy and make you want to shoot yourself if you don't account for condition properly :DIf you can evaluate condition (both interior and exterior) ahead of time, you can get a ballpark figure for repairs needed, and subtract that from the 65 to 70 percent rules.

You need to take that estimate and start evaluating the rents and prices in different areas.

But to answer your question, you should evaluate all properties you are buying as an investment as investment properties.