To be more successful, you simply have to work on the other elements to progress your REI pursuit.

My friend is 81 and progressing toward retirement.  

I would suggest stepping back, learning the whole process a good bit more, and learning how to evaluate deals before you start looking for them...

I am also thinking about not doing home inspection but am not convinced it is a good idea.My contractor tends to be more loose with his estimates when we are evaluating houses, and he wont check things out as thoroughly as the home inspector.  

There are dozens of other factors in your criteria but you get the point for multi-family.If you're doing single family look for areas that have good school districts, large populations, high list-to-sales price ratio, low days on market, path of progress, etc...You don't need algorithms.

I know my market really well and find it really easy to quickly evaluate the risk etc. 

It might rent for $2,300 but you might lose $12,000 on your first tenant because you have no experience, no education, and no game plan.I recommend you educate yourself and learn how to evaluate properties with real numbers, not speculation.

I guess because I knew there was nothing much unusual about the request I didn't communicate exactly why I thought it would be easier for you to comply with the request and keep the wheels of progress rolling.I'm glad it worked out for you, and I'm glad you learned something new about landlording today. 

Prove that you are competent in the evaluation and the actions needed to turn the property around and it may be hard, but I believe you can find the money.

Do you know how to evaluate ARV and rehab costs.