My experience shows that the largest factor in determining value is sold comps.  

Buying property in the "middle market" assures you have access to the largest tenant pool in any economic climate.Continued success!

In addition, if it's your primary home, it don't believe you can depreciate it.Even if you could do it, you would lose one of the largest benefits of a primary residence, the $250,000 non taxable gain when you sell.

I would not suggest that you have a new agent handle an investment that might be the largest investment in your portfolio.

In Hayward, there is a huge 7,000 laundromat that I believe is the largest in CA and it was doing great business when I was there.

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg all founded the largest tech companies and didn't finish college, but the two founders of Google were PHD students when they founded their company.

With this info, our investor group was able to think creatively & found a way to make a large bid with just a small portion of the investment group.DOWNSIDE PROTECTION: This was our largest value bid to date, so we did a thorough assessment of downside scenarios & exit options.

But on the flip side they usually won't buy a property if they don't have the rights so there is a play ( and when I used to do this I was the largest foreclosure buyer in the state back in the early 2000's until it became incredibly competitive and not that profitable like it is today)  I would buy the one's and wait out the 6 months.. since I was cash and I had large volume most of my competition had limited funds and really needed to get their hard money loan on the property ASAP.. no loans on properties if you don't have the redemption rights.I suspect when you get into the nuts and bolts there is a good chance you will forget this idea .... because its apparent your not 100% versed and this is a very RISKY thing to do if your not exactly sure what your doing at all times... you would be better off with direct mail and or hammering on short sales.. as some of those still exist and especially out of the metro area one of my flippers only buy's rural and is still doing well

And there are 12.7 million+ people in PA and it is the 6th largest state by population only exceeded by CA, TX, NY, FL, and IL.I am not employed by the Pa, state or the Pa Chamber of Commerce and receive no compensation for my opinion.

@Matt Tager Hi Matt,As you will continue to find, and as @Jaysen Medhurst, and @Mike Dymski stated above, your largest asset in investing will be your network.