I have met with the upstairs tenants in their apartment and quite honestly they have so much furniture crammed in the apartment, there is no way the kids could be running around or rollerblading.  

Investors - Are you more, or less likely to buy the property if all you see are studs and subfloor vs existing dirty carpet, damaged drywall and old furniture etc.

I have enough furniture in storage to furnish this house, so we will rent individual rooms until spring, then we will get the entire house re-rented for May.You can always pick-up individuals during the school year ... those who land at university as a foreign student or late admission are around for another 2-3 weeks.  

Also anyone who can be paid per our for small jobs like ikea furniture installation, demolishing or debris removal.

We took the small profit to buy furniture.

The landscaping needed work too, I removed scraggly and overgrown bushes/trees, put in two block walls, a patio privacy fence, lots of work on the grass.  

Then net out the utilities, cable, internet, vacancy, furniture cost, etc..

Out here in the flatlands, folks have a lot of brown/natural wood/beige furniture & linens, so gray is a little too trendy for some properties.

When we arrived we peaked in the windows and you could see a bunch of ratty looking furniture (odd for staging I thought).

Also the home is what is referred to as a "patio home" to where it is actually detached from the other ones.