Inexperienced investors tend to (1) get exited about deals without having the experience, knowledge or ability to properly determine if indeed the deal is good, bad or mediocre, (2) take what the seller says as gospel not realizing most sellers will exaggerate, lie and or withhold vital information to get what they want, (3) engage people who will provide opinions for free rather than pay a competent professional, (4) get emotionally caught up in the deal and very defensive when receiving an opinion or information that doesn’t support their dream, and rationalize that more experienced people who point out flaws are “jealous, negative or haters”.Btw, no one can provide any knowledgeable answers to your questions without first analyzing the deal, your ability to come up with a down payment, your credit capacity and banking relations, if you have a track record, your experience with similar property ownership, etc.

There is not much you can determine from just economics, we recommend strong personal guarantees from the principals who will be the beneficiaries of your purchase.

You should be able to build it out for about $250k and you then just need to calculate how much monthly/yearly rent you will get to determine how long it will take to recoup your investment. 

Determine how long you will likely own the house and costs (taxes, utilities, etc).  

I'm just curious how some of you experienced property owners determine how much liquid money to keep on hand for a given property, if there are important reasons to keep that money in a separate or LLC bank account, etc.

Have yet to determine which strategy(s) will best achieve our goals. 

Now i get that when you go on zillow and similar sites that you get the comps through there but i cant see the houses sold in that same block and also i dont have money for contractor just to give an  estimate so how can i determine an average cost for repairs without a contractor and get a close arv so i can make a good offer?

But Those allocations don't really determine the value. 

HOAs are not easy to determine if safe deal.Then there's the huge HOA fee / mo killing rental cash flow. 

what questions would you ask to determine if a CPA is real estate savvy?