investing in real estate should not be as hard as investing in the oil and gas industry, when folks digging a new oil well, everyone knows they are gambling 100%. real estate investing has to be seamless and everyone should work together, including the buyer and seller, you're not buying a gold mine here so the reward/risk ratio is not there, and you may see only the pain.

If you consistently analyze properties, it will be much easier to recognize a good deal when it shows up.

@Shiloh Lundahl Yup, all for market inefficiency at time 0 :)  not gambling etc. 

If your property is in cook county and I recogn in the state of Illinois property valuations assessment values are often time inaccurate to the detriment to the owner. 

Hello - newbie here,I'm a single high income earner so have very limited tax benefits for real estate investing and know that I cannot become an IRS recognized real estate professional while I have my W2 job.

There are plenty of "slums" around though so that is probably the hardest thing to recognize being out of state.

I used A @ 10 cap as an example of something that even I can recognize as a bargain :-) Recognizing the other 10 cap property is a real challenge though.

I recognize my market is very different than the Ohio market but a 1 BR in my market ranges from $1600 to $2200.  

I recognized this would become more tiresome as I continued to add tenants and units though.

Will the property appreciate in value so that the house will have equity - and would a bank even recognize the alleged equity?