This is investor-GC approach to control the cost as any overruns will eat up the profit:If you use a hands on type realtor they know what is wrong and what needs to be validated, what is fashionable and approx. low cost. 

I was looking in a similar fashion to you for a few years--find a home to live in for a little while, then rent it it out after we found the place we wanted to settle down.

The rumor is that the upstairs was basically closed off bc the insurance company didn’t want anyone from the upstairs unit pulling a mission impossible stunt to steal all the diamonds in the jewelry store.

PETTY SURE, that’s an old fashioned 110v/20a plug.

Must be insured, reliable, ready to start immediately and finish in a timely fashion, need to take credit card or any type of electronic payments.

I'm actually on the path to house-hacking in which I'll probably rent out 3 or 4 rooms in a similar fashion.

Crack a good old fashioned book called The Contrarion's Playbook for some simple breakdowns of time-honored REI strategies.

Usually at a 60% discount for prepaying it in this fashion.

I feel like if I would have done this to a prior tenant I would have lost in small claims for dishonest use of deposit and failure to act in a stepwise fashion (replace one section/attempt to clean first. 

Unfortunately my partner and I are unable to come up with the 20% in a timely fashion.