After many years self managing I can say with confidence that you should NOT choose based on cheap, free or price. 

Lived cheap for years , ( still do ) . 

.- Look for stale listings of cheap vacant lots that tend to fit that criteria. - Buy a bunch of them. - Lose out on most (now you're stuck with that vacant lot that, if you go sell it, will be a stale listing with little/no interest), win on a few, and hopefully the wins offset those losses. 

Having a license is cheap, being able to use your license in any meaningful way is expensive.

I would expect that if you are currently paying for the gas the cost to get a plumber in to do a little gas line work if needed might be around $1000 (my gas plumber was$125/hour but other places might be more expensive) and the gas company was actually quite cheap, so the actual meter install might only be about $200.

However, difficulties aside, you have to learn how to source cheap houses (I suggest off-market) and renovate.  

Having someone that can be relied on is better than getting cheap that isn't done, or isn't done well.

Rehabbed homes are going for 200k, and there's rehabs to be bought for dirt cheap.

Better to build from scratch or buy a wreck that is cheap and rebuild it the way you want.  

Buy a cheap distressed property every 6 months and rehab it into a rental then refinance it out to repeat the process again.