Some outside influences in Bay Area such as international investors and those with money who choose the Bay Area as a destination city.  

Cite those statutes, please, because I've read them in my sphere of influence, and it says the landlord is repsonsible for the premises, to provide x, y, z structurally.  

Tenant personality would be heavy influence at that point.

Market value may not included some future influence unknown at the time of the sale.

@ross Ellington dropping a storage shed in the back yard and tacking on additional rent is an example of endless ways to boost rent above market after you've secured a qualified tenant.

You've got to be a saver.As for posting to forums, and REIA meetings, the company you keep does influence you so it is important.  

However, we thought we could use a boost in the early going and so we waited to find a great home in a great upscale neighbourhood that had a rental unit in the basement. 

But paying off the cars should give you a nice boost when qualifying for your investment property, so well worth the effort, in my opinion.   

Not counting on it, but could boost me $10-15,000.The top has to go, it would still be around $60,000 to rehab a 960 SF 2 bed, which wouldn't work.

I agree with a lot of the comments here - that no credit is not as bad as poor credit.In our screening process, we have built "no credit" into our scoring system:They score nothing for the category "credit score"But they get a high score on "payment history"These sort of wash each other out, giving the applicant a "neutral" score that is then influenced by other categories.This has seemed to work well for us overall, and we don't have too many problems with people who don't have credit history - it is often a reflection of good budgeting, especially in older individuals.