Quote from @Jaron Walling: @Theo Hicks Excellent example! 

Our tenant just moved out and we found the following damages on the floor, the door and the wall. 

Knob and tube wiring, plaster walls, cast iron main stack.Do a typical inspection, but just like buying your own house, you are taking risk.  

Multiple times I was called over to fix doors that had been pulled off the hinges, Outlet covers that had been pulled off and broken, towel rods and toilet paper holders pulled off of walls, stuff put down the drains causing back ups.

Cleaning, restocking, rebuying broken furniture, hanging up new art, meeting with a general contractor, etc. your kids will be expecting the beach, and yet you will be hanging up wall art. 

I have ~$40k in IRA money earning nothing because I think Wall Street is a crooked casino, and poised to crash again. 

Your either going to beat your head on the wall because of the debt and stress about it making money or stress that you paid all or a substantial amount of your cash when you go all in. i understand this will be unpopular for a lot of BP viewpoints but it worked for us, we own 2 STR that we owe nothing on now and purchased both for 670k and have a real value of $1.2-1.3mm. it requires you to put a lot of your cash back to your reserves but you have it all to do it with.Personally we believe in ourselves and our ability to pick high producing properties(that is the very first and foremost consideration) then we went all in and never looked back, 2 years later bought our second STR with mostly cash. 

Always think about the challenges the next developer will face. 1. fault line reduces the buildable area of the lot = reduce property value2. talk to a structural engineer & contractor about the added design and costs associated with both the fault line and the retaining wall. 3. if the steep grade is too steep then you might need to pile drive a wall vs grading and building a retaining wall which adds a lot of cost. 

Removed a few walls and painted the kitchen.

If you do turn that into a bedroom, move the door to where the current window (the little one) is on that other wall.