Quality of schools, crime rate, median household income, tax rate for property, tax rate for tenant's income, ratio of rent vs purchase price, proximity to employment, proximity to shopping, proximity to public transit - that's just a partial list, and in some areas some of those are less relevant. 

However, because of varying incentive structures having control over an asset can be very beneficial vs. holding it in some type of public company structure or fund structure where they may have incentives that are not the same as yours all the time or where your return can be somewhat capped by promote structures.

You have made the first major mistake by announcing on a public forum that you wanted to raise money.

The HOA is a restricted covenant so they are always listed on the owner's deed (which you will find in public records) if it was prepared by a title company or attorney. 

The following IRS publication covers the solo 401k plan in more depth. http://www.irs.gov/publications/p560/ch04.htmlOn the other hand, if you are looking to flip real estate using retirement funds, neither the solo 401k nor the IRA LLC may be a good fit because of UBIT, a type of tax that applies to IRAs and solo 401k plans when flipping is performed inside an IRA or a solo 401k. 

The property is in a subdivision on public water and sewer, so luckily we don't have to go through all the well/septic and utilities fiasco but I'm still in a bit it over my head. 

I recently wrote a program to scrape property info from public records and a few other data sources.

I cant say that i have ever tried them but it looks like they are collecting public info, not sure if there is any value here or not.  

The Federal Reserve has publicly indicated that it will increase the federal funds rate next year, which will have an effect of mortgage rates.

Age is not a protected group.1.You cannot refuse to rent to someone for the following reasons:a.Raceb.Colorc.Sex (gender)d.Religione.National originf.Disabilityg.Source of income (public assistance)h.Familial status (children under 18 with parent, pregnancy)i.Sex orientationj.Gender identity.2.You can refuse to rent to someone for any other reason or no reason at all.3.If an applicant does not have any of the protected qualities, then they have no basis for claiming unlawful discrimination. 4.The areas of risk are when you are dealing with someone that has one of these qualities.