They removed the majority of items and then left me to finish up.

I know it will take longer to finish the project myself, however I believe I'd save more monthly than the holding costs for a property.

Befriend a short order cook and let him tell you about his average day.

Hey @Jason Cook. 

I have a contractor that did not finish the job on a rehab I am doing for one of my rentals. 

If so, the lead time from start to finish after land acquisition will be about one year with most of that time used for permitting.

It looks really nicely finished!

@Daniel TisdaleAt this point you could move into the garage apartment and add a June Oven and a plug-in induction cook top.

We just finished a 100% gut to the studs rehab and got it rented/sold last month and have another 100% gut job in process that drywall is going into next week in Seguin. 

It seems like it might be best to find that middle 'sweet spot' and go with the median level of finish then in your case (sounds like not wanting to invest a lot to update, and want to keep cash flow at max.)If I were to run comps and see on the high end of area rentals it meant all new countertops, appliances (high end), hard wood/laminate, kitchen cabinets etc and on the low end it meant more of an 'apartment level' finish - I personally would go for the middle road to this and maybe choose to refinish countertops, refinish kitchen cabinets and go strictly mid-range on appliances (I would pick up the extend warranties personally).In hitting the kitchen and baths, getting some fresh paint up and addressing flooring- I would know the heavy 'where the eyes are drawn to' items were checked off my list, take it all for expenses come tax time and be pretty happy to know I was right in the middle zone for the area- I wouldn't have the lowest quality of renter pool in the area, or be worried about overpricing myself out of the competition on the high end in my mind.