I was very honest about the fact that they were bare bones, but it was a quiet, safe building with great maintenance and great location, and a fair price.  

They wanted me to call a 24 hr AC repair service to have it fixed tonight.I hope you're ready to pay for a day of lost wages and the T-bone and half a dozen Budweiser's they bought at the Outback Steakhouse down the street.  

If you run the numbers and you can charge a justifiable higher rent and get quicker realized depreciation on appliances i could see how someone would land on providing more than the bare- bones i opt to typically provide as almost like another source of revenue for the rental.

They find that there was no leak at all and the ceiling was bone dry with no signs of water damage.  

Protect the bones/infrastructure of the house, which this is. 

As to your list, these are my personal opinions, from a tenant's point of view, as I now rent:Yes to removing the popcorn ceiling.Don't paint white - you can paint the ceiling & trim white, but paint the walls an off-white, like bone.  

It was originally a two-story hardware store.Our units were very bare-bones.  

They allow tenants to pay late because they do not have the back bone to be business first, they set their rents below market fearing tenants will move and they do not do rent increases for the same reason.

The owner I worked for used Kelly-Moore bone for all of his apartments and properties.  

Just needs a power wash and some paint, needs the weeds wacked down, junk hauled off, rip out that carpet, basically cosmetic stuff - but the bones and location are good!