The good news there is they are fairly easy to predict and calculate, once you understand what it is to predict and calculate, but you probably knew that.So, I suppose the only benefit I could possibly add to this is the refinance piece and getting approved on a multi-family.

I am searching rental properties and realized zillow provides rental estimates and prediction of home values in the next year, etc. not sure how reliable are these info.

Unfortunately, it is virtually impossible to predict accurate numbers for many of these expenses for a given rental unit in a given year.

Allowing tenants to control their own heat, allows them to choose the temperature that suits them best and keeps landlord expenses predictable and low.NOTE: Some of those in our REI club that oppose bb heat are big proponents of natural gas.

If you are just entering at the $245K price point plus your renovation costs this is a bad deal.The appraisal will never come back as high as you are predicting.

However, I don't want to totally discount this aspect of real estate ownership.The model of the future will incorporate predictable and steady returns the way people currently hope things will work out.2.

That would at least lend a bit of predictability to your costs. 

That being said....we can not predict where interest rates will go.  5-7 years ago when we first hit 5%, no one thought it was possible for rates to go lower, and they almost hit as low as 3%.  

I'm not smart enough to predict the market.

According to banker, "Predicted strong growth for next 8 years, Everett next Bellevue", very cool.