If that is accessible, it adds value (egress).

You seem to be using 60% LTV to improve your projected Cash Flow.  

Are these improvments supposed to be "depreciated" over a number of years?

Do you have funds that are easily accessible in case you stumble on an offer that you can't turn down?

Here is my process I have thought out for now, please feel free to critique/provide improvements based on experience:Learn through BiggerPockets, David Greene, Gary Keller -- I personally want to avoid getting too deep into this phase, get the basics and run with itCreate a system on analyzing a property - I have my own parameters that work for me and have put them on an excel sheet - I have what I call 'quantitative' and 'qualitative' tabs that give me a 300 degree viewGet pre-approved as I am learningNext comes the Research phase (learning and researching are going together) - this is taking time.  

This will give you unlimited access to the calculators.

When we make a real estate purchase, we often pay for the down payment from our own funds (equity in) and use business funds to pay for the improvements and operation costs.

By keeping it they could access the cash from a sale if they absolutely had to.

Savings account.Some people recommend other options for higher return but I prefer it to be liquid and immediately accessible.

It's usually around 2 years with potential to extend in 1 year increments.The issue is that 5 years might not be long enough to breakeven on the improvements you plan on making.