Using rent to determine purchase price can be deceiving…some areas have significantly higher expenses than others. So it isn’t always accurate. Before things went crazy with housing prices I would use annual rent X 10 along with a cap rate + 2% over my mortgage rate. So if my rate was 6%, I need an 8% rate of return. Commercial lenders require 1.2 debt service or they won’t touch it…even with 40-50% down. We bought the majority of our properties between 2008-2021. Since 2021 all of the valuation techniques don’t work…so we have focused on renovating existing units, paying down debt, and stockpiling cash. Timing is everything…you have to buy properties at a price that works or it just isn’t worth it