Depending on how they are done, these alterations can ruin a property, or if you are lucky, thought went into the alterations and the old doors and trim were saved in the basement, making the restoration of the real charm somewhat easier.To summarize, you really need to understand fundamental construction and either have plenty of experience to know what you are looking at, or Pros you can truly trust and rely on to adequately evaluate your opportunity and provide numbers that hold true to a high degree.

My motivation is I pray at the alter of capitalism every day.

Got a front row seat to the GFC and it forever altered my investor DNA.

I would start quoting the lease a good lease should state tenants  are not to make any alterations to the property without landlord approval.  

And how do you alter the time deadline and give a hard date in the letter -- if you have no clue when the mail will actually be considered legally delivered?       

If the Legislature and Governor don't alter the "ramp" on the City's current police and fire pension payments, the tax hike is not enough to satisfy state law and prevent state tax dollars from being diverted from the City and into the pension funds. 

There are separate entrances, and it would be incredibly easy to reformat the floor plan to make this home an up/down duplex without doing too much to alter the current lay out.Does anyone have experience with the city with this process?

Any alteration or deviation from above specifications involving extra costs will be executed only upon written orders, and will become as extra charge over and above the estimate.

I'm not financially free, I don't see us ever leaving our jobs, because you need W-2 income to do bigger deals.That said, I'm not overworking myself, I'm not angling for the corner office, and I'm not worried about losing my job, because I'll find another one, and I could take a 50% paycut and it not alter my life, I couldn't buy more real estate every year(maybe just lowly value stuff).

@Russell Brazil is correct regarding losing the Section 121 capital gain exclusion by transferring to an LLCI do not agree with the other post that most LLCs can be pieced - it is very difficult and expensive to prove, in court, that an entity is the "alter-ego" of the individual owner.