As I go through the material I would like to discuss it with you further.

That is worth more than the usual generic material on offer by 99% of the real estate coaches. 

Other hurdle will be, how to hook it up to utilities.

Tenants may be paying a premium to get free utilities, in which case your rents may be overpriced when compared to other units paying their own utilities.

The material will get you started but often times you will run in to issues - 50% rule, 1-2% rule and other so-called metrics that are used by American investors when looking to residential properties. 

He also import his own material from China and can use that in his advantage to offer lower than anyone else

I put cap ex at 1000 per door a year ball parking it so 160 a month I am not including the studio in these evaluations because I will live theremaitnance as 85 a monthvacancy of 160 a monthSo over all looks like this so far.40k downprice 158500rents 1700 monthtax and insurance 560monthcap ex 170 monthmaitnance 85 monthvacancy 160 monthall together 975 a monthsubtract that from both units rentAnd there is 725 left over enough to cover the principle and interest and leave like 100 bucks left over for my utility's and such.current owner says the coin laundry downstairs covers the water and tenants take care of there electric and suchNow just 100 left over isn't much only 1200 a year not a very good return on 40k but when I move out and instal a fire escape in the studio as I live there I can rent that for another 550. after I adjusted the numbers for the studio this deal looks really good because I am able to keep pretty much everything the studio would produce.I'd get like 6k a year and get a 25 percent cash on cash which sounds as delicious as it can get.It is in a working c class class area. on the worse side of it. that's were most of the duplexes in the area are to be honest.

If your are getting the same rents as the area, but YOU think some "sprucing up" will make your place show better, then DON'T remodel.The issue you are facing will be low DTI ratio and high credit utilization.

I guess that is partially due to the fact if the tenant is paying for their own utilities they can write the expenses off when it comes to taxes. 

What is the best way to separate the heating system and pass that utility onto the tenants?