In fact, that is a pretty contentious item in this community.  

You cant report some income/expense on schedule E and carve out the interest expense from the line of credit and call it an investment activity and an itemized deduction on schedule A.

Expenses are an income statement item, repairs go to the assets of the balance sheet and capitalized.

I have sold many condos and have only had clients have issues with making interior changes if the change would negatively impact a neighbor, cause noise at inconvenient times or in the Pearl where there are can be a lot of restrictions on interior changes as they can cause structural issues (for example some buildings don't allow you to hang heavy items with maully bolts because of building envelope issues).  

I broke your question into the following items and will address each one as best as I can.Should you manage your own properties?

My back door doesn't openUnreasonable "honey do" list or items that can hit the back burner.......way in the back1.

None of those mentioned are primary data collectors - they all just aggregate data they buy or get for free.  

Materials - could have saved on a bunch of items, now that we know where to go (we bought all the materials and also did the landscaping).

How to find the records on line or locale tax collectors to find delinquent liens?

and looking at expected life vs cost of each item.