I know a lot of my tastes/opinions are not those of the majority so if I remodeled a house to my liking, it wouldn't appeal to as large an audience as it could.

I'm looking at it like between it being a REO and appealing the tax assessment.

You can not program a computer to decipher human judgements such as appeal, quality and physical condition.

Additionally, because I am recently a 1099 employee, I don't qualify for conventional mortgages or FHA loans, so the appeal of house hacking isn't as applicable here.

I have some experienced friends who have offered to help me out, which makes me a little more comfortable with the magnitude of becoming a rental investor.I've been doing a good bit of research on the area I'm interested in and crunched some of the numbers to find some appealing candidates for my first one.

Your way around it if it is fix and flip is to just do work that will increase the appraisal: improve curb appeal, enhance the kitchen or bath, or turn it into an open concept.

I have one more piece of advice to share:Michael, before you start buying everything to furnish your rental, I think it's very important to understand who your target market is and figure out what would appeal to them. 

May even get the wheels turning when you think about appealing to your clients...https://www.wealthsimple.com/en-us/magazine/catego...

The presentable model along with a team of experts (like a broker) also makes your business more financially appealing to investors.

Aesthetically, these websites are much more appealing to potential buyers and they do have insightful stats on crime and schools in the areas.