I also make sure that there is not a lot of actives close by and if so, I evaluate them closely as they are my competition during my exit.

They area dictates the market.Not only do economic functions set the stage, but social and governmental aspects need to be evaluated too.

Which leads me to continually evaluate my 'profits', which often don't seem commensurate with the risks.As for so-called 'low ball' offers more RE investors should make them: let's encourage distressed sellers to more fully understand that this is a BUYERS MARKET, and that we truly don't care if they take our money or not.

Each deal is analyzed and evaluated based on it's own merits.

But you're going to have to evaluate literally 100's of deals before you find your first one, unless you get extremely lucky.

I was just wondering is there a formula anyone uses to evaluate possible Income producing propertys,...Any help would be great!

Matt,What the sellers mean is the past buyer either found something on inspection,the bank took too long to reply to the short sale,or the buyers offer was too low and they didn't like the banks counter.So short sale approved means the bank has ordered evaluations of the property and came to the conclusion this is what they would accept.

Fortunately this is not the case when it comes to evaluating the pros and cons of using a cash value, dividend paying, life insurance policy issued by a reputable mutual company.If you post the details of the contract you are contemplating I would gladly help you analyze them as it relates to your objective of using values to finance real estate investments.

The deal is pretty reasonable from a cash-flow perspective, but not fantastic, so without additional details that would require knowledge of the area, comps, etc, it's pretty hard to give more information than what Joel suggested above...I'd evaluate the financials of the deal by assuming I were 100% financing it and then see what my cash-flow would be after debt service.

All you would have to do is evaluate the deals and make offers.