Once you get it flush you can lay your floor on top of it. 

Personally, I can see no valid reason to ever use conventional financing for an investment property.  

No matter the market run your numbers and make sure it makes sense for that local area compared to what you can expect.

You are required to file a complete and accurate return, which means reporting the income that you earned along with atleast the direct expenses that you incurred on your rental.There are two comflicting forces - Your tax accountant wants to be aggressive with deductions because it will entitle you to paying less taxes(now or in the future).Your lender wants to see as much income as that will increase your Debt to Income Ratio(DTI).The good thing is that you can speak with your lender about 'one time expenses', that were only incurred in that year and are not reoccuring. 

I have five houses in the 48224 zip code.Like some have noted here, Detroit can be very block-by-block.

Can your property look better or be more inviting.

Ideally, it would not need something like Zapier to connect tools, as that adds to the costs and can be clunky. 

If lenders would consider a 2-3% buyers agent commission as part of the purchase price and LTV based on this (contract price + buyers agent commission) we can end this Byzantine step of the buyer’s agent having a separate agreement executed with the seller for the seller to offer to cover the buyers agent commission.  

My wife and I can cover $75,000 or so, but we would need a loan for the rest until we can get a SBA 7a after closing.

Like, what can go wrong?