I don't blame my tenants because this is really a result of my poor choice in landscaping when the house was our residence two-three years ago.I need to fix the yard... general clean-up, trimming, shrub removal and replace dirt that has eroded.  

, paint, door locks, interior door knobs, landscaping, trim, new doors & or windows if necessary etc....Figure out what in your market will be competitive. 

I don't allow any pet in my apartments they are destructive especially cats they pee in closets and on floors, dogs scratch floors and chew on trim causing damage so it's not worth the clean up and repair.

Termite infestation or dry rot damage on a window trim.  

All bets are off it the underlayment needs to be replaced and any extra trim work needs to be replaced.

I do have a roth IRA with about 6k in it, and something else I can think of is we have a home that we could put the money into making some value-adding improvements (kitchen and updated interior trim mainly) and maybe then use a HELOC or something of that nature.The sole purpose/intended use of this savings would be for real estate, that a portion of it can be used as purchasing power and a portion of it kept as reserves for vacancy, capital expenditures, holding costs, etc.So, my main question, as the post title states: Where would you suggest someone plug their savings into, where it can grow in the short term with the intention of liquidating or accessing it within a year or two and not getting penalized?

I am looking for software that lets you take your own image of the outside of your house or interior rooms and change paint colors, windows, trim, carpet etc. 

You can install either multiple smaller systems or a larger, multi-headed (multi-zoned) system.Regardless of the heating or cooling system you install, your biggest bang-4-buck will come from air-sealing and improving the building envelope ... this can be a simple as replacing weather stripping on doors and windows and caulking trim to adding additional insulation to the exterior (or interior) of the wall assemblies / attic space and replacing windows and doors.You should probably start with having an energy model {aka heat loss analysis} performed on your house which will identify the current energy losses and the measures you can take to improve the performance.

You will need an actual business like an LLC with all the trimmings.

So we're potentially looking at new cabinets, floors and base trim, at a minimum.