Painting walls, updating fixtures, or handling minor repairs yourself can save thousands upfront.Consider Your Exit Strategy: You’ve got the right idea;house hack for 1-2 years, then convert the property into a long-term rental.

We do some cosmetic improvements to bring homes to our standard, typically carpet and paint, upgrade lighting etc.

Needs gutters, full kitchen and bath, floors, paint with some drywall repair, windows, front porch and the deck on the rear is pretty poor as well.

Why the resistance to showing her you do own these properties? 

.- You close on December 10th- The property is in great shape and does not need any significant repairs- It only needs some paint touch-up and changing a couple of broken fixtures, which you do yourself- You spend the next week buying furniture, electronics and supplies and installing/arranging everything yourself- You also roll up your sleeves and scrub the toilets and sinks and appliances- You put it on AirBnB/VRBO and have your first guest renting it for the 3 days of Christmas- You second guest rents it for the following weekend and leaves before NYE- You personally clean and restock the place between these two guestsCongrats!

Also the fatal flaw with books is they're written at a point in time, which means they are not necessarily related to today.Still can learn a thing or two, but I would resist the urge to follow the book that hard. 

We painted the inside, opened the kitchen/dining room, replaced windows, removed a nasty fabric lined black tub from the basement, replaced the siding and redid the bathroom.

We did remodel on this one with new lighting paint, auto gate etc.  

I am not an expert in either lead or FHA, but here are a couple thoughts for you to look more into.By lead in the unit do you mean paint?

I wouldn't get my hopes up as he really has no obligation to, but if he sees a $5K item he can offer and forcing the legal aspect would cost $5K as well, he just might go with path of least resistance...The other aspect is you should 100% figure out exactly what the cost for you to take care of your items would be.