There is no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.

If you are not willing to go through the pain then look for a different market.If you are willing to deal with all of the headaches and fight for years, my experience has shown me that there is a pot of gold on the other side.

I personally wouldn't know what do to with a small pot of money just sitting there. 

My current savings pot is low; I believe this will enable me to accelerate my savings goal as the barrier to entry is significantly lower.

It's very hard especially in California where Pot is legal. 5 out of 10 applicants cant pass a urine test, and the other 4 had some sort of traffic violation on their record within the last 5-7 years.

My initial thoughts are to spend money upgrading the kitchen and master bath; granite countertops, tile backsplash, maybe a pot filler over range, tile shower, extra windows?

we rarely see advice on this site from investors that talk about going to your city or county meetings when they are discussing the comprehensive plans.. or I have yet to see anyone suggest you go to your city or county and talk to the long range planner.. its not a guess its planned get ahead of the plan to create real estate wealth. buying a rental house is simply RE starter one oh one and investor tend to simply focus on ONE metric cash flow at the purchase which i guess is fine but its a slow boat to be on . .. but there is so much more to real estate that SFR rentals buy and hope   Hope your tenant is good hope your neighborhood does not go to pot etc. etc.  

It was a Saturday and one family was out and the other was home and my first indication should have been that that side reeked of pot and when we went to head up to the master bedroom on the 3rd floor the husband rushed ahead to hide his stash of weed.

The kitchen is updated but the pots, pans, and utensils all need to be replaced.

and my Grandfather had a hardware store in Chelan back in the day he provided pots pans and utensils for the workers at the Grand Coulee Dam.