Adding bedrooms to both units sounds like a game-changer for rent potential. 

But from my limited time in the game, I’ve found that my complete lemons are cash cows a few years later as market rent comes up well and my cap ex fixes a few years ago have paid off.

Cash flow is a sucker's game.

Somehow I think it's better to hold onto my own money and keep that dry powder on the sidelines waiting to get into the game if there are some emergency expenditures (haha, very likely with the kinds of deals I'm thinking about in class C neighborhoods).

I have also have saved almost $50K so far to take a start in this game and also my personal credit score is above 750.I'd like someone to guide me purchasing my first property and want to kickstart with a small property first.

Others noted that the appreciation play could make it worth keeping, I tend to look more heavily on appreciation since real estate investing is more of a long term game.

It was great to get our heads in the game, and got us to move quicker to get a house (since we were basically forced to get a pre-approved loan in order to tour houses...).

I don’t mind having skin in the game either, but I know using private money is key to scaling one day and would like to get some experience with it now, even if it doesn’t fund a majority of the deal. 

I don't think anyone has ever said anything about sheets, towels, Keurigs, wifi speed, tv stations, pack-n-plays, the games in the game room, the upgraded appliances, etc.

Checked info online and should be getting some sort of updates, but nada.