I had a similar situation where the tenant damaged the carpet but we replaced with a slightly more expensive vinyl plank (we had pretty cheap carpet in).  

Get this wrong and you are screwed.Basements do not increase the appraisal value much because they are not considered above ground living space for obvious reasons.The basement does provide a cheap space for utility units and storage.  

trees in the Appalachia region where land can often be found for dirt cheap.

Urgh - 1,000 cheap rentals.

Money is so cheap you can easily leverage yourself to the point where even a small perturbation can cause disaster.

I haven't looked into these much before but they seem extremely renter friendly and cheap to purchase/maintain.

More and more foreigners are investing and it's practically impossible to find a interesting deals that are not "on plans" - delivery planned for mid 2018 (the earliest).Would love to catch up in Barcelona in May and discuss about that in more details ;-)

The labor market works on supply and demand , you get rid of cheap labor and wages rise .

I would then put that money into 4 cheap rentals and live in a cardboard box.

Single family houses are incredibly cheap.