. $50k sounds like a lot to you but with the price of materials and of qualified labor, it does not go too far.

As others have stated, your fit & finish goals should be guided by whether you plan to:1) Rent: tenants don't always take care of a property, so you want to use lower-grade materials and workmanship.2) Flip: higher quality on workmanship and materials is usually required.Regardless, you always want to "Maintain to the Neighborhood".

Hiring someone to do the work will likely cost too much (I would charge a small fortune, it's an incredible amount of work) and doing things as cheaply as possible will bite you in the *** later when you start having issues with your own shoddy work and/or materials.

ACM (Asbestos Containing Material) abatement is a tough one because often you won't know (outside pipe insulation & 8x8 tiles which I can spot and point out with no testing).

I'm going off the understanding that you still need to spend 500+ hours in the business to achieve material participation (please correct me if I'm wrong). 

Because it's a material fact to them.

all materials, all labor costs to others, Not you, utilities, interest payments, permits, licenses, auto/truck expenses, tools needed are all deductable. 

My research tells me that once I qualify as a REP with the material hours spent on the STR, I can use that status to deduct depreciation from my LTRs as well by using a regrouping election on my tax return.

And remember, authentic content that reflects your unique perspective and experience will always be more impactful than recycled material.

I am 70% thru the materials and will likely go back and do a quick review of all materials before siting for the exam.