With bank loans if there was no real money involved for the down payment then the bank can't do accurate underwriting on a loan to assess risk of the borrower, the property, and a lot of other metrics that go into a yea or no on a deal by deal basis.

I'm having trouble focusing on a handful of key metrics that will help me narrow down my analysis to a few broader markets (city / state).

If you are strictly looking at cashflow per door as your metric, your best option would be to pay cash for your properties.

My focus is on cash flow vs. other metrics. 

The most important metric would be the best ROI for comparable risk, wouldn't you fink?

The software continuously checks the MLS for properties which meet both the metrics of the treatment organization (Oxford House, for example) as well as our clients cost, income, and ROI metrics, to see which homes satisfy both conditions.For example:-Our clients may want to spend no more than 500K, be in specific zip codes, be buying cash and want a certain ROI.

On BP I have been paying particular attention to discussions about the metrics I should be using and how to accurately measure each property's success.

Cashflow and NOI are 2 separate metrics. 

Now if you have metrics that show a steady decline in crime, an increase in property values and see improvements the local infrastructure, commercial and residential refurbs and building, then that is a different story.

Everybody has the same idea you do.When  started my VRBO in PC there were less than 4000 listed, as of today there are over 6100.My place is consistently ranked in the TOP 20/out of that 6100 for all metrics combined.