I bought one apartment building in a C-/D+ area, and it doesn't matter how much lip stick I put on it... it is still a pig!

There are lots of towns in CT with median home prices well over 300k and awesome school districts (for locals, think West Hartford, Farmington, Orange, Monroe) where you can pick up a scraggler for 150-200k, give it some minor/straightforward rehab (usually kitchen & bath updating, a new face, and just a lot of lipstick) for under 50k, and all of its comps are selling for 350k+. 

Basically throwing lipstick on a pig.

Generally, I would say when I was starting out, I wanted lipstick renovations.  

In that case it may be worth the investment but the return may not be worth your effort.Generally the most you should do is repair everything and basically put lipstick on a pig as they say.

It's a rental so if the work does not add to your bottom line you do not do it.Make sure everything works properly, put some lipstick on everything and rent it out.

etc.New work can sometimes cover up a lot of problems, and there are no shortage of "lipsticked pigs" out there. 

“He was receiving kickbacks from them to be the lipstick on the pig and sell their junk.”Funny line, but a lot of people are losing their *** ets apparently.

But is that just putting "lipstick" on the pig? 

Not only about real estate investing, but I'd be able to point out all of the crappy lip-stick workmanship in this house.Best thing I can do at this point is make improvements.