I would try a home improvement store.

We renovated the laundry room, added a refrigerator and painted the cabinets to bring a fresh, clean look, along with a little bit of hands-on TLC we did ourselves on weekends and during our lunch breaks.

I suspect that we will all be waiting a lifetime to see rates back to were they were 2 to 4 years ago.. so I would not bank on that.. as for pricing.. if its a place to live then you certainly can just wait and see.. its not like your homeless or need to move other than you don't care for your neighbors.. markets always slow about now.. what will be telling in my mind is were we are at next Feb March April in the buying season as it were.I was in a conference this week here in Vegas and some of the speculation is that many of the commercial type loans that had 5 , 7 and 10 year calls  are going to stress those that had max leverage.. as the rates rise the cap rates rise to keep pace thereby devaluing the properties.. to the point some of these investors are going to need to bring some to significant amount of fresh capital to pay down their debt to get a refi.. and that will stress those assets and there could be a real buying opp in that sector.. at least that's what I gleaned from the talk I listened to yesterday... hope you find that dream home in the country !!!

Some of the larger expenses-Interior/Exterior Paint, Storm shutters for a few of the front large windows, added additional cabinets to one unit, New refrigerator from Dent/Scratch store after old one died, Laundry units that tenant pays +$50/mo for etc.

I use these tools for my own house so rather than have them clutter up my garage they all are stored nicely in my trailer.

Something I do to help get a tenant out when there lease it up is I will get free boxes from the local liquor and hardware stores and drop them off at the door.

The practical issue comes to who the bank can recover from after things go bad and personal guarantees help the bank to solve that.So, for example, you can open an LLC or whatever business vehicle, but practically, banks aren't going to loan you unlimited money since a fresh company probably has no business history/assets.

I’ve been an independent contractor for about 6 months, and am looking to buy my first property but am having trouble securing financing due to that I don’t have two previous years of 1099 tax forms (because I’m fresh out of college).

Use it as a lesson and start over fresh with your next tenants.

I'm looking at a house in Bremerton, WA that is a toss up between renovating it, and blowing it up and starting fresh.