Don't skimp on the front door and hardware, go with the style of the home, but I got a very nice door at an antique building materials place with knocker and had a guy refinish it in new casings, in this area that's usually an upper-end thing, especially on tudors, english or french...

They make "Sharkbite" style ones that slip on over copper, PEX or CPVC piping so you don't have learn to sweat pipe or buy PEX tools.There's a million other possibly needed tools and parts, so get to know your closest stores and their hours.

They said they were very impressed with the quality of the work we had done and the loved the finishes and styles we had chosen. 

The building will be contemporary in terms of design, so some commercial style windows will be needed.  

Of course as time goes on and you become a more sophisticated investor, there absolutely is a place for targeted seminars and coaching that will teach you about more advanced areas of REI such as syndication or non performing notes, but that isn't necessary for basic bread-and-butter single family rental investing.Kiyosaki does offer some helpful videos that are available for free on YouTube.  

My contractor thought that would be a lot less than removing the brick and changing the style of the chimney.  

Those $20 pin-style moisture meters at the big box stores are darn handy. 

I saw an extremely run down property with 3 tiny one room studios in a row house, perhaps 200 SF each! Another 1/1 was a little bigger. And a main house was about 2000 sf. This isn't the kind of property I would want ...

This will get you started into investing and teach you how to analyze a property, make a deal and be a landlord.If you don't have time to manage the property, hire a managment company.

All I can say is teach me your ways!