"The pro's deal checklist: what to confirm before you trust a deal"

Ask a seasoned investor how they vet a house and you'll hear the same rhythm every time. It's not the math; software does the math. It's knowing which handful of things to confirm, and in what order, before trusting the result.

Here's the sequence, front-loaded with the checks most likely to kill the deal cheaply.

1. Property tax. The quiet deal-killer, and the input most likely to be stale on new builds and recent sales. Sanity-check it against the county's effective rate; the full method is in the stale property tax trap.

2. Insurance. The other quiet killer, and in some states the fastest-moving expense line. Get a real quote range for the property type and area, not last year's figure.

3. The rent. Open the comps behind the estimate. Are they actually comparable: same bedrooms, condition, block? Would the neighborhood's incomes sustain this rent? An affordability-stretched rent means vacancy and turnover eating the spread. In Rescover, the comps are one click deep and the affordability grade is on the report.

4. Vacancy and turnover assumptions. A projection at 3% vacancy in a market that runs 8% isn't optimistic, it's fiction.

5. The market context. A 7% cap rate is great in one metro and ordinary in the next. Check the deal against its own market's medians, not a national gut feeling.

6. The exit math. Selling costs and your hold period change the answer more than people expect; a deal that works over ten years may not work over three.

7. The physical short-list. Roof age, foundation, anything your criteria call out. This is what the on-site checklist in Blue Chip exists for: the software clears the finances, your eyes clear the property.

Run the list in order, every time, and you'll catch what a veteran catches by instinct, without needing the decade that built the instinct.