She has found this to be pretty profitable for her.

I picked up my condo for a great price and did a complete remodel which has increased its value by significantly more than I put into it, which made me think why don't I do this with other condos and sell them at a profit (hopefully).

I'm pretty conservative by nature, but would hate to overestimate the profit potential.

With two, you either will likely kill your profit or you will be checking in on them.

If you perform the repair personally, you have to be reasonable in charging fair market rate. eg. if it takes 1 hr of your labor for some handyman's work, $20-30/hr is reasonable, even you're probably paid much more in your own line of work.My suggestion is to first fire the PM who obviously wanted to skim some profit by inflating the repair cost while exposing you to lawsuits (remember you're in CA - a blue state and San Jose - a city with rent control).

I've got family there who own property in the area which has been profitable in the long run for them.

My advice is to not settle for breaking even or even a small profit. 

Just make sure to properly calculate all costs and expenses to ensure that the property is in fact profitable. 

In this case, I would incur that overage as a turnover cost.Obviously if there are large damages or larger jobs, I would deduct from the deposit.  

My tenants had never had more then a $10 increase under the old owner, I increase by $30 a pop on most controlled units the building  was profitable regardless.