He has quite a bit of experience in buying and selling real estate himself as well so he should have some professional/personal insight.Also at this stage we are having them uncover the tank to ensure it is still there and at least start assessing the condition.

That doesn't exactly answer your question, but it is information that I recently uncovered and found interesting.

this would get you to 24-32 tenants.My thought would be to have each room with it's own bathroom, hire a cleaning service for common areas, and building out a shared deck for the four buildings and maybe a smaller building as a common area as well.Any flaws to this idea, assuming numbers work out?

The 1% rule is inherently flawed and leaves out all nuance.

They can uncover many of the hidden items your eyes cant see.

Sometimes things are uncovered in inspections which you can leverage for negotation.

This cost an extra $200 and uncovers things like utilities, code violations, etc.

You can also do this on your own, but the agent will be able to narrow down many options and if they're really good they'll uncover some gems or off market deals.What I suggest is doing basic deal analysis on each of the properties you visit and you'll improve the "math" skills that you mention you struggle with.

I think that some years ago you had to pay 25% tax on your unrecaptured Section 1250 gain no matter what, so people have it fixed in their heads that you're going to pay it, and there's lots of misleading websites out there still saying that you're going to get taxed 25% depreciation recapture, but I think the IRS changed it somewhere along the line and that is no longer completely accurate, as discussed here:https://www.taxcpe.com/blogs/news/recaptured-and-unrecaptured-real-estate-rental-section-1250-gain and here: https://forum.thetaxbook.com/forum/discussion-forums/main-forum-tax-discussion/28485-is-the-schedule-d-tax-computation-worksheet-flawed

My friend/advisor with more experience says I am being a cheap knucklehead and that the $20k is not relative when you factor the forced appreciation and income/valuation of the improved asset(proforma), but, I think it is math and $20k is always relative and I have my criteria(4.5cap) and was very transparent about it from when I first submitted the original accepted offer, and my DD uncovered several hidden deficiencies that make the credit necessary to maintain my original underwriting numbers and even though I understand my friends rationale, I don't want to give in any more slack(adjusted to 4.4cap), than I already have...What do you experienced multi family acquisition people think?