In the meantime, I had a bad experience with a local (Seattle area) custom cabinet maker so I'd love some recommendations on folks who do high quality work, but are reasonably priced and responsive.

The USA is the opposite, high borrowing costs, but appreciation if timed right.I would recommend building a 800 FICO for FREE and a 80 PAYDEX LLC for a few hundred, saving cash, and waiting for the next bottom.

What about painting inside and.or out, new flooring, cabinets dont need paint or knobs or new counters?

But given the future development right next door I'm not sure if it would be better to sell (take the money and run) or rent it out (pull out the equity to buy more real estate, cashflow a few hundred/month, and hope the building next door doesn't drop the value of my condo). 

I'm not sure of anywhere one can rent for a couple hundred dollars in Charlotte metro.

Before I get started, I should mention that my dad has developed and rehabilitated nearly a hundred affordable housing projects over the years. 

ie tile goes with the counters and the cabinets. 

You spend less when you are too busy being productiveAll these things added up to hundreds of dollars a month in savings.

The Nisource pad mount transformer would run 8-10K, an REMC might charge a few hundred dollars.

Tell them you'll give them a few hundred bucks (or more if the deal is good enough) at closing.Keep in mind though that small towns are a lot of work for little benefit because you'll likely never turn up another deal in Edison so you just wasted a bunch of time building up relationships there.