As we've grown to 120 units we continually struggle with managing the utilities for our rental units. 

Utilities are generally public and you can call them to get averages, taxes are public as well and can be pulled either from a assessor website or at their office, insurance companies can give you cash value and replacement value quotes by giving them an address, general rule for running calculations for vacancy is 5-10% of gross income, I have seen maintenance expenses all over the map (anywhere from $300-750 or a % of the rent - those vary depending on the number of doors in the deal as well as how much deferred maintenance has to be dealt with or how much rehab you are going to do to negate the deferred maintenance), contracted services, call a few landscapers and get quotes and use those for your analysis. 

I'm just getting started myself with REI so I don't have a ton of insight for you but I'm looking to expand into Albany with multifamily.

I rent out the rooms.What I’ve learned is having a room w a private bathroom is golden for my tenants they typically come from other roommate situation sharing a bathroom, having a private bathroom they see it as a luxury..Typically when rooms are rent out utilities are included, high speed internet is most important Utility for them..

I deal just outside of those areas and I am getting 700 rent which is 8400/yr = 4200 NOI and selling houses with those numbers in the 20s. turn key. so paying 25k you would have a 16 CAPThere are a TON of ways to analyze, but this way is Conservative. and when wrong, you end up with a higher ROI. 

We have a ton to learn but are enjoying the podcasts.

Not sure what you mean by too early.I’d still buy pre-foreclosure if a seller contacted me; we just don’t target market for those anymore.what I mean is 99.5% of people are still in major denial.. and so trying to spend a ton of time dealing with them at the substitute trustee stage will be fruitless.people in this situation in my humble experience only get serious the day before they lose it or 2 days before.we never even contacted them until 5 days before auction.. and the reason we KILLED it is we had little competition.. most need loans to buy we did not.. most rely on attorney or title company for the transfer we did not we did it ourself..

The termination of utilities could give you reasonable belief that she’s abandoned the property, but you’d still need rent to be overdue by 14 days and to serve a Notice of Belief of Abandonment. 

He's lined up to be a speaker at one of our upcoming RareBird Investor Network meetings as well (I think July) so you can come see his accounting chops in person if you would like. 

As long as the foreclosure was a 1st, and done properly, you will have “clear” title except for any HOA fees and current/back property taxes, maybe some utility bills.