My recent favorite is Roof—still kind of new it seems but they're building new features and improvements really quickly.

Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney.

I'm happy to invest in improvement, but concerned about fundamental issues with the buildings that may be more difficult to address. 

The seller may be willing to carry the contract for a couple years to let you make improvements and get rents up to market so you can then refinance.  

If the kitchen was just about ready for a fix up and you have a tenant who has lived there five years, then you will need to do some improvements before you can get market rent on the next turn over.This why I spend some time regularly looking at other ads on hotpads or Craigslist just to keep up on what’s out there.

Does anyone know if I take out a HELOC on my primary residence and draw funds to purchase/improve rental property (1) will the interest be deductible? 

The other records for that property will sometimes show how often the property has changed hands, or if it was foreclosed to a lender, etc, in the past.Tips: If you live in Orange County now, or you know someone who does, try to look up your/their house in the county land records for practice. 

So I closed on on the property last Friday and discovered in my closing  disclosure I was going  to PAY for Title Insurance,  Settlement fee, title search fees and lean search fee which racked up about another 1k on top of my 15k of commissions. when I questioned why I was paying this my realtor said it that is this was normal practice for the seller to pay this??

Not to mention the improvements will result in a 200-250 a month increase in rent, reduced water use and electricity.

I do have a low interest home improvement credit card at 7% and I have up to 17k to use on that line of credit and about 5k saved.I'm afraid I'm going to max myself out... afraid I'll buy too low and too much work will be needed... or buy too high and not have enough to finish.