You'll need to find a partner here in the city who works well with outsiders yet has the regional knowledge and connections to get you to the right local banks/credit unions, put solid workmen on your job sites, and play nice on your behalf with all the various code enforcement entities in the idiosyncratic governmental arrangements of Allegheny County.

But if you have 30... 40... 50 properties, the 50% (+/- %5 depending on geographic region) is a reasonably good measure over the first decade of ownership. the 50% rule of thumb does not consider debt service.

I always recommend looking for local or regional banks that have a strong commercial loan department.

its understood that people want to live near the coast and water etc, but its going to increasingly become uninsurable. already we are seeing way more flooding in coastal areas in Southeast US, and the sea level is ONLY going to rise further.I've debated in my mind many times about taking some coastal regions entirely off my investable markets criteria due to massive problems with the insurance markets in the coming 10-20 years.Houston...

However in the interim I'm really focusing on building relationships with people in the industry around the Washington/ Oregon region and then jumping into a project to kick start my real estate investing career.

That is, if all the similar properties in your area are offering appliances, you probably have to as well in order to compete (otherwise, you could lose out on good renters and have long vacancies).But I was struck by the variation across geographic regions in the US...

LTV ratio varies, sometimes they'd give you as little as 30%, other times as high as 95%, from my research it seems that you'd get somewhere in the region of 65% max credit line.  

I live in Portugal and am active in Multi Family apartment buildings in the Midwest region

I've also looked at the crime rate and my area falls in the moderately safe side, with the region to the east being completely safe.

My question is regarding another opportunity that has come into my periphery:My father in law works closely with the Head of Property for a large non-profit organization in the region.