Houses in the $50K range are being snapped up by REITs, who are doing $20K of rehab/upgrades, and then placing on the market for rents at $1,200 per month.

I want to call it "The Kelly Wrenn Home for Broken Toys"Poor Kelly, she never had a chance, may she rest in peace.

To do what I want it to do requires an upgrade. 

I thought the search was broken at first.  

If you hold the property long enough and make sufficient upgrades you should be able to make some sort of profit down the road if you choose to sell.

It states that 'tenant shall pay for all utilities, cinluding, but not limited to: electricity, heat, telephone, fire alarm changes, heat system maintenance costs, janitorial and cleaning charges and snow removal from xxx street in front of premises. and then in another section goes into more detail that I shall be responsible for 'normal maintenance of such items including, but not limited to heating and air conditioning systems' He said that the heating system is only two years old and that if something was broken beyond repair it would be on him but it is written out and sounds like there should be more detail. opinion? 

Electric rates vary, but around here, electric and oil are the two highest heat sources.An energy audit might point out possible upgrades to the property to save on utility costs.And while the utility bill is the tenants responsibility, I have found that lower utility bills make the tenants stay longer.  

The tenant doesn't want to pay anything extra, so they never report anything that is broken.  

You are fixing something that is not broken.

I think its a great idea, Use your PM to give you a rent range pending what rehab you want to do- ie- sometimes, you can upgrade some materials (labor usually is constant or a small increase) and get a lot more in rent.