Hello BiggerPockets, I went to an open house for a property that was listed as a 2 family but with only 1 electric meter, 1 forced-air gas furnace w/central air and 1 hot water heater.

Total cost of materials was around 70k, labor was sweat equity plus about 30 K in other labor cost (sewer later pull, back-flow valve, tankless water heater,4  mini-split units, sub-panel etc).  

@Ryan Kelly mainly north austin close to Apple campus and new water park in round rock

You are relying on pure luck to get a deal with these methods.So again, why are you choosing these methods.

For homes for water heaters 4 Plex for water heaters I think you get the picture.

They claim even after running multiple rinse cycle, the water is running brown.

Many solid and popular books about rental property investing have already been recommended here, so I'll suggest some less obvious reads...Liar's Poker (Michael Lewis) for pure entertainment and a primer on how Wall Street supports liquidity in the housing market.Home (Witold Rybczynski) to appreciate the many different ways people want to live inside their homes.What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow (Frank Gallinelli) to understand when and how to deploy key financial metrics to make better decisions.Handyman In-Your-Pocket (Richard Young & Thomas Glover) to be your own handyman and/or check up on contractors and subs you hire to work on your rentals.Have fun and don't forget that you'll learn more by doing your first actual deal than you will from all the books in the world.

My water/sewer usually runs about 225 for our lower unit of a duplex.

There could be involuntary liens such as code violations, water and other utilities that survive foreclosure  and are not necessarily recorded 

.- Cost of Capital: when you compare your deal against WACC, this is return rate of your equity within an individual deal, after factoring out the payback of all debts and equity partners- Opportunity Cost: when you compare your deal against the opportunity cost of similar deals or any other investment you could potentially make, this tells you whether or not it makes sense from a pure return perspective to invest in one type of asset or another.Super basic example below where you buy a 10% return property, and take out a 4% loan at 60% LTV and gather equity for a portion of the remainder 25% of value @ 8% and then comparing the return of your equity against inflation and an opportunity cost investment such as the stock market returning 7%:Note that you compare the rf or inflation and the opportunity cost against your personal equity contribution.