Paint, flooring and a bath / kitchen refresh you can probably do well with hiring the trades for specific jobs. 

Generally PM's are required to take continuing education, which is often focused on new legislation as well as basic "refresher" classes on basics such as Fair Housing and LL/Tenant laws, Fair Credit, and even Safety.

If you did finance your property, and you did a 3 month refresh on it, you then are stuck waiting 9 more months (ie 1 year since purchase)  before you can refi it.  

probably because they can't read or navigate the RE websites in Japanese.

It is so refreshing to be amongst like minded individuals. 

@Steven Wilson Yes it is very refreshing to see more value being added.

The apartment is probably going to need a refresh anyway, and I’d rather have the money in my pocket as opposed to having to give it back - not being able to prove that they broke the closet door, etc.

Increased rents, introduced new revenue streams and drove NOI up materially by renovating/refreshing units.

@Neil G.kudos for putting it all out there, your financial breakout and listing is refreshing and helpful us all in understanding what might be going on. 

Might give it another go as a refresher.