You might consider painting the home, or at least rooms that are painted bold colors, a neutral color that does not make them seem too big or too small.

I agree with a lot of the comments here - that no credit is not as bad as poor credit.In our screening process, we have built "no credit" into our scoring system:They score nothing for the category "credit score"But they get a high score on "payment history"These sort of wash each other out, giving the applicant a "neutral" score that is then influenced by other categories.This has seemed to work well for us overall, and we don't have too many problems with people who don't have credit history - it is often a reflection of good budgeting, especially in older individuals.

Some inspectors seem to make everything sound like a big risk item, others are very neutral letting the reader judge every risk.

The benefit of immediate expensing of business investment operates as a more beneficial and more neutral substitute for the deduction of interest expense associated with debt incurred to finance such investment.

If I could put zero down and be cash flow neutral, I would do that all day.  

If let's say, your annual mortgage payment is $14K on your $140K loan (or 10% loan constant), that means your have neutral leverage.

If the tenant wants any custom color other than the neutral color than I use in all my units, then I will ask the tenant for a fee of $3000 so I can paint the unit back to neutral after they move.

student loan is neutral debt because it does not produce cash flow but the loan helped you to get a college degree which then helped you to get a job.Don't forget inflation which eats away at your loan (mortgage or otherwise) when the rate is low 4-5%  (inflation around 3-6% traditionally).   100 dollars now will be worth 90 dollars in 5-10 years.  

This way you can be at least monthly cash neutral while you proceed with the additional units.

To answer that, you have to ask if you can you find rental properties in Grand Rapids which are currently cash flow positive, and which even in market-downturn stress testing (using 2007-2010 data as a stress test) are highly likely to maintain relatively neutral cash flows?