At pure retail, a bathtub remodel could cost you $18,000 (my in-laws just paid that much to rip out a tub, and put in a walk-in shower).  

A Lenders cannot lend you purely on rental income.. even if its a basement apartment it needs to be legal if you want to consider the income from it.. 

One of the first upgrades was battery backup sump pumps with audible alarms.  

You can just add this in the description on airbnb.My neighbor has the battery powered cameras and he has found the batteries need to be changed much more frequently than he imagined as there is always a lot of motion triggering the camera.I have a commercial system that powers the camera by the same ethernet cable they are plugged into.

I can remotely keep an eye on my house and get a discount on my insurance.I have the hardwired ones so I don't have to worry about replacing batteries.

Saying that, if you are looking at an area for the cash flow purely, I would recommend Cincinnati, let me know if you interested!

If a TV remote's batteries die, you need to hope you have batteries.

I own a STR cabin in northern MI, where I'm from, that's been doing pretty well and so I've had the idea to buy another similar property up there (I do have a great husband/wife team that takes care of the place, pure gold), or something similar outside of Nashville that I could manage and occasionally enjoy myself!

@Mike SmithI agree with @Howard KlahrThe value of the appraisal, and this is pure speculation, is probably placing most of the weight on the market approach.

@Nick Brubaker this is purely a lender issue as we can put any entity in the First Named Insured position when starting a policy.