("I'll order pizza and we can wash some walls" sounds like a nice date night, right?)

You need to take your car, jet ski to the car wash.

As for what the house needs, it needs a new kitchen and appliances, remodel 2 bathrooms, new lighting throughout, new hard wood throughout, a lot of wall paper needs to come down and repaint entire interior, carpet the basement and reinstall new drop ceiling in basement, power wash house and refinish outside deck.

How was he related to the relatives was one of the questions someone asked?

Instead they just wanted us to power wash walkways, and paint hallways instead!

So its kind of a wash.

Since then, rents have definitely increased, but so have the property values, so I'm guessing it's still a wash. 

So all the properties wash out to roughly the same profitability.Note that I don't want to purchase properties that require any rehab first, because all that does is increase my investment, decrease my leverage, and therefore decrease my cash-on-cash and ROI.SO NOW I CONSIDER OTHER FINANCING.  

Yes you put money in pre-tax and pay back with after tax funds, but the money you take out is pre-tax so it ends up being a wash.

Was he told to by someone?