Other than that, keep everyone on month to month, written leases.Fix anything that is an urgent need, but don't improve the property until it comes time to renew and you can raise rents to market.

I have owner-occupied a number of houses, and have improved them as we go, and sold later. 

How much tenant improvements needed, free rent, attorney legal fees, tenant broker leasing commissions paid, etc. ? 

Just bought my first property and I plan to do a house hack while doing some improvements on the property.

Love the refinancing twist to improve your returns even further.

So we bought a fixer, improved it, moved and instead of selling, we rented the last one out, and by this slower method we collected rental doors.  

This usually assumes many things such as improved financials of the property, value-added, lower rates, more experience, more lenders competition, ... etc3.

He likes to give back and help others improve.

Is there any major improvements that you could have taken?

If this is, you likely will not be able to take out any equity to use to improve the property.