2 pennies: You could consider expending your search to Bartlett, Lakeland, and/or Arlington.1.

How long are you planning to live in the home and is the 40K expendable?

I don't have that kind of expendable money.

At this time, we don't have any rentals in Nashville and the other two mentions only self-manage.We are open to expending to the Nashville market but if you would prefer someone who is already there, I can get you a couple names. 

There a quite a few post-war (1946 - 1955) houses around here with 9/12 or 12/12 pitched roofs which are still sporting the original steel.You can paint them, but unless you expend the effort to prep the metal, the paint may not stay all that long.If the roof is near the end of life, consider replacing it with a new steel or aluminium roof .. they will last 2-3 times longer than asphalt shingles.

Second - I understand cash is king and people like to acquire properties with the least means possible but do any of you have opinions on expending a higher down payment (if the means are readily available) as to reduce PITI payments (especially with reference to career points above) and achieve a more favorable debt:income ratio for future qualifications to acquire additional properties?

By expending most, if not all of his cash, it would make more difficult for him to do a deal in the future without selling his first property, which he may or may not want to or be in a position to do.  

SIGH;  There's so much a capable DIY'er can do that it's easy to cross the boundary for CODES and/or ZONING.Hope this saga helps others to note that major structural change and/or adding a fully self-supporting area for the intent of renting needs to verify local ordinances before expending time/effort/money.

Had we been dealing with wooden planks, or plywood, on floor joists, we would have expended more effort to save the floor, but it is possible the subfloor would have to be pulled and replaced in the end.

In US dollar terms at 80%, you would expend US$100K to buy and receive US$20K when you sell.