It's slowly improving and I suspect sec 8 would be a poor choice.

Interest paid on acquisition indebtedness and home improvement indebtedness is generally eligible for the deduction.  

This shows you're open to improvement but won’t let a picky guest's minor grievances dictate the narrative.Avoid Emotion: Keep the tone neutral and professional.

Start with one, see what it really costs you and what you could improve on.

Does anyone have any tips on the best way to finance renovations/improvements for properties like this?

My plan was to buy, improve a bit (house was not in bad shape, just need some TLC), and rent out and hold at least 2~3 years. 

We stuck it out over a year hoping things would improve but they have not. 

That’s the second-straight month of index improvement, and it’s been driven by — you guessed it — lower mortgage rates over the past 4 months.

House-hacking a smaller multi-family is also a great way to get oriented with being a landlord, property maintenance, property improvements and other things, while also helping to pay your mortgage! 

Selling (1031 exchanging) our high equity family owned properties is the best (really only) option that we have for funding our share of new purchases right now and with each new purchase, we are buying nicer and usually larger units in better neighborhoods so I'm trying to improve the quality of our family owned holdings in addition to growing a new business with our new partner.