We did some cosmetic improvements to the exterior and interior.

Plus putting the money into improving the rental will allow you to leverage it for more in the future.  

I was interested in the long term rental play with this duplex in addition to house hacking to improve my balance sheet now.

Improvements to the property will not be reimbursed if the previous owner redeems the property from you. 

Read self help, books on improving your personal skills, how to effectively understand what people want and what you want from them, your ability to communicate with the people you want to be more connected with starts with your EQ, of course rich dad poor dad is a great start, but having a good foundation in communication, and practicing it daily will help you grow, you can learn real estate anywhere, people skills is an in the trenches skill, start with smiling at strangers and getting smile back its the simplest form of an exchange.

The main items ypu want to focus on now when running your calculator is the debt service (mortgage), taxes, insurance, maintenance, Capex (if property is in excellent shape and doesnt need any major improvements then this figure does not need to be quite 10%), vacancy (talk to PM), landlord required utilities (if any), lawn care snow removal (if applicable).

The main goal I have this year is to improve my systems and structures around finances and delegate that out.

My understanding is that the interest can be deducted on taxes, if the cash out proceeds are used for improvements that increase the subject property value, however, if that is not the case, then the deduction can only be claimed on the original balance of the original mortgage used to acquire the property that is being refinanced.

@Zachary Inman Atomic Habits is a great book in general for improving how you tackle change in life.

One area that I think I need to improve upon is estimating the monthly rent for a potential property.