This leads you to overleveraging territory, so you ought to measure whether your dream factory job can support the maintenance of however many units you are looking to purchase on top of debt payments on both a HELOC and mortgage.

Most units are large with the majority measuring 10'x20.'

Don’t forget to measure potential tax obligations as well if this was ever your primary residence.    

The only measure is whether you can sleep at night.  

In a hot market you can be stringent.

@Jonathan Partsch, have your contractor to take measurements of the kitchen and take pictures if you want a visual of the space to help you understand it better.

ROI measures things but you need to understand the tangibles, where ever you decide to plunk your money. 

I just have no way to measure skill or relationship compatibility without working with someone.  

The whole "DTI" thing is a measure of your income in comparison to your debt (that they see on credit). 

It’s much harder to measure international migration specifically for the city of Des Moines or any particular neighborhood or suburb.