But, from paper to real life, the tenant skipped, the pipes froze, and now the numbers don't look so great... is that about the size of it? 

@Amit M.While both cities share a similar size portion of jobs being located in a single industry (20-28%), the difference is that most people outside of that one industry can afford to buy a house here in Sacramento, and most people outside that one industry in the Bay Area cannot.The average government employee in California makes less than $60k per year (several thousand less than the median income for all of Sacramento). 

Okay, ever institutional investor has what they call the benchmark, to all it is the S&P 500 composite index cumulative returns (See chart) It is 11% per annum since I think 1914.

Call those agents in the size of building showing you are looking for.The property might be for lease but the owner would sell or the broker might have something off market you haven't seen that may be a fit.

Very few smaller sized properties trade at 1% RVs.

I have a parter who was a GC up until 2008 and is now a supervisor for a mid size construction co. 

That gets questionable when there are only a few homes that have sold in the area in the past year, and the sizes, styles, conditions, and prices are all over the place.Regarding the area, even though Frederick is relatively close to DC & Baltimore, many people around here consider Frederick County & Washington County (Hagerstown) to be fairly rural... even considering the cities to be more like towns, at least compared to the the immediate DC/Baltimore suburbs.  

The average house sold in this area at this size was $120,000.

Sale price $190,000Normal Sized ARV Comp1390sqft -  Sale price $139,000 ($100/sqft)Target Aquisition Property1900sqft - 1350 original & 550sq ft enclosed addition.

Is this your first deal of this size?