How far they are under market rent versus the cost of a turnover.

A good manager will provide you organized accounting, provide a layer of protection (versus self management) save you time, headaches, money.. and is a necessary component of scalability as a landlord.

It seems like there would be less headaches by simply buying one property outright with cash versus leveraging 8-10 properties. 

Doing this will uncover the opportunity costs of holding the asset versus selling short term. (2) Eluding to the above emerging market mention, this is often the cycle that's safest to maximize in emerging markets.

They will call you and it will make it a lot easier to close a deal versus skip tracing and other methods. 

Wouldn't you recommend taking time to learn how to analyze deals and understand tendencies that lead to failure before investing the first time versus buying into a project one knows noting about?

Those two hypothetical fourplexes might appraise identically, but a lot of people would see solid value in getting to do their own tenant screening and include provisions in the lease that are important to them, since $6k might very well be less than the all-in cost of a single eviction, or remediating damage from a meth lab, etc.It's also possible the appraiser screwed up, and if you think that's the case then you'd be wagering another appraisal fee on that.

I guess because it's so recent and fresh, and because REI has become a trending career so the majority have joined in since 2008, everyone is interpreting 2008 as a typical cycle.I'll wager the bold statement that we have at least 5 years of reasonable appreciation.

lenders / underwriters are  often picky regarding any perceived " health and safety " type issues ...rotten decking would fall into this category .....ideas  1) change loan programs / lenders  to see if this issue can be  tabled   2)  possible to patch the holes and  fix the rotten areas  versus  re doing the entire deck ? 

I wish I would have purchased a home versus a condo in an upcoming area as I would have had a much higher gain and rental income.