@Robert LeitnerI'd take a look at the west valley in areas like Goodyear, Verrado, Litchfield Park, anything within a mile or so of Westgate, Surprise Farms, and the Marley Park area of Surprise.The prices are what they are and won't drop 50% like they did in 2008.

@Lucas Miles Thank you very much!

But, the half bath it is counting is a random toilet in an unfinished basement, which would piss off potential buyers.  

People going to Florida will be happy to stay in a hotel on the beach, versus a house a few miles away.2.

I can call expired, vacant, lien, pre foreclosure, obtain timeline for selling (or listing if you’re a realtor), condition, motivation, price, and run comps (equivalent # of stories, .5 miles (not crossing major freeways), same # bedrooms, sq ft, whatever parameters you want set). 

Most lenders also want to see a sponsor that lives or has a place of business within 100 miles of where the property is located.

I have found nothing like that within 500 miles of my area to see what a CAP rate would be...Am I safe to use a commercial apartment building as a comp? 

I would also mention that where it is allowed, listing agents who act in a dual-agent capacity are going to want to realize that dual agent commission and will be minimally interested in sacrificing a portion of their commission and almost certainly not half.

The $35k 1 month project turned into almost 4 months because of poor coordination on the lead-times for the materials that could've been ordered beforehand and flakey contractors not showing up/ working half days.

Where my wife and I settled, given our loans coming out of college (and in hindsight they were extremely low interest: 2% on federal, about 3.5% on private, with one small one carrying about 6%, I believe) was to take roughly half of our left over take home and pay down loans, and the rest goes into savings/investments.