We were considering doing a few repairs and treating it as our break into rental properties.  

In terms of treating Real Estate Investments as a Business what tools do you utilize other than the calculators on Bigger Pockets?

Yes, you'll totally spend 10% just maintaining it then you'll have enough big ticket items to get you into that 2-3k (or more) each year.Tenants that live 600/mo or less will not all treat your property well.

Maybe they did your purchase mortgage and treated you well.

I've done this with our area community organizations and found that if u go in too aggressively they could treat you as an outsider.

They are treating you like a rube who doesn't know the business.

the house was treated for termites by the seller when I bought it.

I wouldn't accept that as a seller.Always treat your natural person sellers with dignity.

We had to ask for 2 extensions to close even though the loan was approved and were treated very poorly.

EDIT: Disclaimer I have no clue how things work in California so treat my thoughts as some yahooligan on the internet who is just spewing stuff :)