I repainted the interior, had carpets replaced, installed ceiling fans, and did other cosmetic updates.

For example the 15% property above was in perfect condition and had been professional repainted.

It really sucks to rent your $175K Fountain Square home to 3 young professional roommates at $1,950/mo to have to spend $12,000 after 3 years to deep clean, change flooring, repaint the entire home, etc.

For instance, in a pure fix and flip, repainting would add to your basis. 

My concern is we are still stripping off lead paint from the exterior of the home in sections and then repainting as we go, we will most likely be presenting an unfinished property to appraise.

I don't personally have any experience with buying a multi via FHA, but I can tell you from a seller's point of view ... having not dealt with the FHA inspection aspect before, I was amazed when my realtor advised that I'd need to, for example, repaint the eves of my house because some of the paint was flaking off, and that FHA would likely flag it and not issue a mortgage, because of something as minor as flaking paint ... the eves were freshly paint 5 years ago, mind you, so its not like they had been neglected for 20 years.

Rent is reasonable for the area.The mobile was completely re wired and re plumbed, cleaned up and in the process of being re painted and carpeted when she moved in, early.

My guys cut the cabinet doors put them back together and repainted.

I had just an eviction case which was totally avoidable IMO.Also the PM refused to list my property and find tenant, unless I repaint the wall (which was painted 5 months ago and looks totally fine to me). 

Probate took almost a year to sort out, but sure enough, once the relative who inherited the place had title we received a phone call, which led to Friday's closing.The numbers look like this:Purchase price - $30,000Down payment - $15k, plus $2000 closing costs (high, but in the PA we agreed to pick up the seller's closing costs so they would net $30k)plus $1k for repainting and new fixtures = $18k total out of pocket costs to closeLoan - Private loan of $15k @ 5% for 4 years.