On the surface students want "cheap", but when they actually look at things: clean, modern, and convenient will win over price.In our "universityville" landlords range from larger companies with hundreds of units; Dick & Jane Public who have an accessory apartment in their basement.  

I see a bunch of single family homes within 20 miles of Seattle in the 50-90k range.

If I found them to be way outside of my range, I cut the small talk and moved on!  

Looking at hundreds of properties will allow you to get to a point where you can walk through a house in an hour and have numbers within a 5% range of actual and know whether it's something you can do or pass on to someone else.  

Of course it depends on which part of LA but in what price ranges have you been seeing for 4-plexes?

I realized it wasn't as scary as I thought and much easier to get units that are halfway desirable in the 15-25k range vs. finding a halway decent house for 15-25k.

Unfortunately, there are not a lot of properties in the area to go on ( range 130 - 193K), these numbers were based on Zillow and tax assessed value.  

For example, if you saw the For Sale sign in the yard, rang the doorbell and offered the owner cash, the listing agent is still due a commission.

(At least in my mid-range markets)4) Honest feedback is difficult to get.  

(fyi properties that im doing these offers on average in the 50k & lower range, good areas but houses that need allot of work (something i enjoy) so they have been on the market for a pretty long time, a buyer with financing likely wouldnt be able to get a loan on them due to condition, so im not dealing with huge sums) @Jesse Waters  my theory that if I offer on houses I like which have been on the market for 6 months or more (some of them over a year) than some sellers may be happy to simply see any offer at all even if its 60% of asking in some cases.