I'm doing fine and see opportunities to grow my portfolio, but the housing affordability crisis has been bothering me lately and has got me questioning if scaling is a morally acceptable thing to do in this climate.For the longest time, owning a home was the only way for blue collar workers to achieve the American Dream. 

And you stop seeing red and blue bandanas on street corners.

I've seen these areas in blue on image below have done well for appreciation last 5yrs (other colours show quartile of all neighborhoods for respective annualised growth).

Because of that, we are seeing a clearly underserved middle class and blue-collar community.

Its in a medium to upperclass part of town and is guaranteed to be able to rent to a blue collar family for ~1300 and bring in cash flow.

2 negatives here....1) not keeping your rents close to market where they should be anyway, 2) doing business in a Blue state/County where they're more likely to do crap like this....

As a long time appraiser i can tell you that the answer depends on the experience and skill of the appraiser, the amount of research and support they did, and the the assumptions and givens of the assignment.An AVM like Zillow or your tax assessment is like the blue book value, a statistical analysis of hundreds or thousands of sales that may be fairly accurate is depending on how conforming your property is, clean the data is, and details of the algorithm (Taxes values in my area will be based on 2013 values until the next reassessment in 2020. 

I would expect above average repair costs for those two items just in case something bad happens and you're not whacked for a $10k surprise out of the blue with not enough reserves.

Our only problem is a lack of inventory, not vacancy.We/I/Blue Sky Living manages properties for many out of state owners and would be pleased to assist either of you in the complete process.

My recommendation, save up reserves and have your “go to” company for anything and everything that needs fixing in a house, a backup for them, and make sure those companies can handle those middle of the night once in a crazy blue moon emergencies!