@Whitney Bowling based on your other thread of your deals and your investing strategy I would say comparing what you’re doing investing wise and what a large (and I’m assuming well financed) developer is doing is comparing apples to oranges.

Tony Robbins and coaches who "made it" didn't get there by giving you apple cider and krumpet, they got there by calling you all out on your BS.

But also a lot of people, meaning the dollars per person are quite low, and there are few to no major employers in the area (I believe apple has a data center...

I think the only way to compare those scenarios apple-to-apples would be Option A and Option 2B, as it's taking into account the same amount of cash being invested, and one can look at the opportunity cost of one vs the other.

So far, I only have one non-payer, which is actually not even a Covid issue, just a bad apple.

Within the past few years Apple, Google (both those to the west des moines area) plus Facebook and now Amazon (to the east of Des Moines) have put down HUGE roots.

I know that Evangel is a Christian U. but I have seen bad apples there as everywhere else.3.  

I'm a flipper, yet there are a lot of buy and hold types in this market, it's about 2 hours from the Big Apple (dated).

The best and most accurate way is to have your real estate agent run the comps.If you want to do it yourself you can look up CLOSED SALES on Realtor.com, Redfin, Zillow, etc.Just make sure you are comparing properties apples for apples when determining the ARV.

This gets rid of bad apples and also lets the procrastinators know that waiting to pay rent to me  is not a good idea and is very costly with additional fees and all.