I'm not looking to invest in a war zone, but perfect neighborhoods tend to have terrible returns on rentals.

You might find someone with not much investing experience who will buy it, and in CA, there are bidding wars, so you never know.

Certain alternate energy components, they qualify for a shortened depreciation period.In any case, by shifting the heating costs, you've increased the value of your asset pretty dramatically.From  bizfilings.com/toolkit/sbg/tax-info/fed-taxes/cost-of-capital-assets-not-deductible-expense.aspxBeware: Buildings Are Actually Multiple Units of PropertyIf you own a building, you already are aware that there are numerous systems within that building, such as the plumbing system and the heating system.

Yes there are numerous ways but it takes some creativity and perseverance....I started on a shoestring budget so I searched websites that scan multiple website posting all at once like searchtempest.com  and searched for motivating keywords to find sellers and even landlords.  

There are numerous possible pitfalls- make sure you understand the zoning for the property inside and out.

Instead I've flipped one easy property, successfully held a small HML for another investor, messed up a second flip and turned it into my ugly baby rental with decent cash flow, bought a third in a war zone, rehabbed it with an XL side of drama, and rented it, working on my fourth flip with a partner, and waiting anxiously about my offer on the fifth, a personal home/quad.

Your results will improve in time as your numerical efforts increase.

I've spoken to numerous people who ask for more information about our company and our reputation.

You would be looking more at south-side, just a warning, but I know companies who specifically target the better areas of the south side and they don't teeter the war zones.

I would be able to add my own estimated costs into this program and/or formula once and save it, then when I would be analyzing a property I could just put number of bathrooms: 2, the program/sheet would then give me an approximate estimate for 2 bathrooms going off of the estimate numbers I have originally entered.I basically want to setup this sheet in a way that I can enter all the estimated prices associated with a home once, save it, and then reuse it where I can go through it quickly enter a numerical value of how many bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, flooring etc. needs to be redone and at the end it will give me a full price for the project.Please let me know if anyone is using anything like this or if I was not clear in my explanation.