Next step will be to determine hard and soft costs and the max I can pay for the property if I want to achieve a 20% return.

What if the agent saw an opportunity in the future to make some extra money at the expense of the OP (for example, soft negotiation to generate a higher sale price) -- would s/he do it?  

you can't remove inquiries from Experian, on Trans Union you can by pulling your credit report through www.smartcredit.com repeatedly,,on equifax you can remove all hard inquiries except mortgage inquiries by pulling that report repeatedly.I hope the credit people dont' read this board,,on another board you sort of have to speak in code about "bumping", which is what you are doing,,the credit bureaus only give so much space for inquiries on your report,,,if you load it up with "soft" inquiries (like pulling your own credit), you will drop them off,,,but it takes a couple of months to get results.All 'soft' inquiries don't count,,you have to know which ones will,,but smartcredit works for TU and equifax itself works for equifax.What ever you do, never make any reference to what your doing to the credit bureau,,don't call and ask "when are my inquiries going to drop off",,,you will only cause yourself massive problems,,they don't want anyone to know it existmake sense?

My understanding is that this will be a soft pull.Credit Sesame will give you your Experian score,Credit Karma will give you Transunion, andEquifax Credit Score Card will give you a range.Here's a link I found from someone who walks you through the various sites: http://www.moolanomy.com/826/get-your-free-credit-score-online/

You seem to well on your way attend some of the BP meetings either in NY or Summit, NJ they are both relatively close to you. 

The problem with carpet pad in a rental is that it holds/traps liquid (water, soft drinks, beer, pet urine) that the idiot tenants are not smart enough to clean up.

You don't need a hard number but you should be going for a soft commitment of fair market value for the property and condition.

I tried the frosted spray paint and it didn't work to well for me but it may have been "user / installer (me!)

We refuse to throw in the towel, but we definitely need to try something new because what we've been doing hasn't worked. 

put some color,  a few towels and flowers.