What the source actually says
Examples include list price, unit count, tax record, and a lease you have reviewed. Preserve the source and date.
INVESTOR RESOURCES · OPERATOR NOTES
Useful methods for clearer rental decisions.
A deliberately small library about acquisition screens, investment Criteria, evidence, and diligence. No market predictions, manufactured urgency, or mass-produced neighborhood pages.
NEW · FIELD GUIDE
Build rental-property investment Criteria before the listing changes the rules
A practical, operator-grounded framework for defining goals, hard constraints, financial rules, evidence standards, and the next decision before evaluating a property.
01 / METHOD
Separate facts, estimates, and assumptions.
A model becomes harder to trust when every input looks equally certain.
A value inferred from imperfect evidence
Market rent or near-term repair cost may be useful before verification, but should remain visibly provisional.
A rule chosen for the model
Vacancy, maintenance, financing, and reserves should be explicit so another investor can change them without changing the facts.
02 / INVESTMENT CRITERIA
Build the mandate before opening the listing.
Criteria keep a promising story from quietly moving the goalposts.
- Define the goal.Cash flow, learning, appreciation, operating simplicity, or another explicit objective.
- Name the hard constraints.Geography, property type, cash required, minimum reserves, financing, and maximum complexity.
- Choose financial rules.Coverage, cash flow, or return thresholds that fit the investor—not a universal online score.
- List automatic diligence.Items that always need confirmation even when the first financial screen clears.
03 / FIRST SCREEN
Five questions before deeper underwriting.
- Which inputs came from a document, and which came from a listing or memory?
- What is the first investor rule the property misses?
- How much liquidity remains after closing costs and immediate work?
- Which single changed input matters most to the result?
- What diligence could disprove the current conclusion?
04 / WORKED CASE
See the rules applied to one synthetic duplex.
Follow a property from goal and Criteria through assumptions, the first constraint, sensitivity, and due diligence.
Read the duplex case study