The rental had ratty furniture, a record player prominently featured in the marketing but it had no speakers, missing basics items in the kitchen, lots of drunks in the concrete hallways that reverberated right into the bedroom at 2am, a strong odor of urine outside, and more.We have super hosts in this forum that have hundreds of 5-star reviews and are masters of the craft, but I look at their rentals and see they don't have any artwork on the walls, decor is basic, they do nothing to make the guest feel welcome, etc. 

We focus on CapEX before beauty. as a realtor we understand selling or renting homes you have to make the home function, Roofing, windows, electrical and plumbing. after we address these we focused on beautify making sure the upgrades match the area and is forward thinking with color scheme, flooring, and flow.

Some of your other posts are pretty solid, but you need to get some help or take down the photos of me on your wall.

Thing is I hit a wall, I want to expand in my area, but I also want to expand in other areas and I am stuck in a little analysis paralysis scenario.

Moving walls usually requires figuring out what is or isn't load bearing and likely putting a large and usually expensive header.

The first one we bought in Jan 2020 and it came of the gates roaring rentals wise in 2020 only to hit the covid wall.

.-- The carpet was nasty and walls unpainted and chipping.- The bathroom flooring was covered in mold and needed to be replaced.- The kitchen sink was unsecured and fell into the kitchen cabinet.- My insurance was cancelled until I fixed roof issues.- Debris littered the recently occupied unit, the basement, and all over the back yard.As mentioned, we had an initial video walk through before the contract to purchase.

Real estate's "gross rent multiplier" is Wall Street's "sales to revenue",  "cap rate" is roughly "P/E ratio".When evaluating markets and investments I tend to start with GRM (or lazily the 1% rule), then attempt to return a cap rate based on assumptions about costs, then I work my way to multiple years of projections (assumptions about inflation, amortization, tax benefits, etc), and if I am partnering with one of my smart friends I have to pull up an IRR (internal rate of return).I also look at regional employment levels, median income to rent ratio in the zip code etc. 

Quote from @Jaron Walling: @Elizabeth Leb Every dollar of that $20k needs a purpose.

The units all have tri-paint jobs with ceiling paint, a nice wall color and super-white glossy trim on everything else.