I have clients that love them because some big ticket maintenance items and upkeep are included in the cost and it makes it more passive.

As a general rule- a big ticket item that improves the value and livability of a property cannot be "written off," but it can be depreciated over time. 

Personally, I would just focus on the big ticket items.

When looking at the deferred maintenance before purchasing, we had calculated a lot of the big ticket items (like insulation in attic, power washing repointing brick cracks, etc.) and we had even included things we could see like missing doors.

These are big ticket item that effect the price. 

For example I can do a referral to my broker if I have a big ticket commercial client and I don't have enough experience to go through a multi-million commercial sale. 

@Effram BarrettThis is just the ticket for us!

The proper chain of events would have been:Tenant hangs clothes>clothes fall down>tenant notifies you via your trouble ticket system (formal, text, whatever) that shelving fell down > you fix or arrange for someone to fix shelving and thank tenant for letting you know. 

My only advice for out of state is to find a kickass property manger who will also oversee your renovations (and does this regular for other investors) really that’s the golden ticket to getting out of state investing to work.

Better yet, buy tickets to an event she likes with some profit from your next deal.