The biggest gripe I had was that sometimes they didn't clean up to my picky standards.

You want to see in the bid the work they plan to complete and should include prep items and clean up of the site post work.

Removing trees or just some clean up?

As for the reserves, the 60k would not deplete all of my funds but it would eliminate a substantial amount.

It would be tough to cover this and the down payment because it would deplete all my funds.

It’s a great start to clean up certain areas.

I am quite familiar with the construction/ clean up side of things but new to the rest.

The main work needed on this property is replace the flooring,  update fixtures, paint the walls, clean up the pool and the outside.

As a result, some CPAs will charge a clean-up fee when they're preparing your tax return and this will cost you more than paying for a year-round bookkeeper or paying for real estate-focused accounting/tax software (like, Stessa, digb.com, or Quickbooks Online) that auto-categorizes transactions and will allow you or your CPA to export filled Schedule E.

Costly but probably cheaper than your water bill and clean up costs.