Cap rates are also different as being acceptable by an investor of larger multi family as opposed to smaller 5-10 types primarily from effects of early depreciation.As to specialty areas,  I haven't seen Joel's concern as to multi family as much in business and RE, office-warehouse, warehouse, storage facilities, general office are not difficult, I'd rather see an appraiser admit they don't do agriculture, industrial, hotel-motel-hospitality appraisals than attempt to and screw it up costing a few grand.

I will be lucky if I can post this, as my last 3 attempts have failed. 

But, after a situation where a tenant threatened to break the lease, I realized how ineffective that smaller security deposit was- it wouldn't have been enough if the place had been vacant for a month or longer despite a reasonable attempt to find a replacement tenant.

That's exactly what I am attempting to do in finding a worthwhile multi-family home and utilize FHA for rehab.

I am attempting a similar strategy in ATL, and it seems to have legs.

This is my first attempt at an in depth question since joining the forums.

The property wont finance with a normal lender so I will attempt the seller carry until I can rehab it to refi into a conventional.

The only information for specific price he would give me (after several failed attempts) was the cost of the HVAC portion of the work and that was substantially greater than what an HVAC subcontractor had bid!

I am not saying privacy is not worth attempting , it will keep perhaps tenants and nutcases off your back.

If you simply lower rents, you may not end up with who you may want so much, anyone can apply and attempting to weed out non-students presents discrimination issues.I've done student rentals here, we had great experiences but I also have non-student applicants and tenants.