They left two tumbler cups and some other small items on the kitchen counter when we moved in. 

Updated kitchen, bath, floor, appliances, paint, backyard.

My brother remodeled the kitchen What was the outcome?

Kitchen, baths, roof windows, 

We also have a screening requirement to do a video interview with any applicant having a FICO score under 620 - the whole point is to have them show us their kitchen, bathroom and one other room.

For example you could get a 4-br 2-ba SFH and carve out 2 of the bedrooms and one bath to become a 1-br 1-ba + kitchen/living room JADU, and then also convert a 2-car garage into a 2-br 1-ba.

Purchase price: $10,000 Cash invested: $32,000This was originally a two bedroom house upstairs with kitchen dining room living room and a bathroom downstairs with like a mud room for say.

We turned a SFH into an up/down duplex by framing in a locked door at bottom of stairs and adding a kitchen to the lower unit.

Either negotiate a good price or only pick upgrades that's necessary in the rough phase and do the upgrades with your own subcontractor/vendors after the house closes (kitchen upgrades, appliances, countertop upgrades, flooring upgrades, landscaping upgrades you can get them much cheaper without going through the builder).New construction is a winner if all things are the same. 

Hi guys - we are about to close on a property soon in Philly and are planning to do the following work - -Add HVAC, Add a full bathroom and add a half bathroom, Fix kitchen (keep same layout)My contractor is saying that (Approach - 1 ) - we don't need to pull permits.