Not necessarily what you can do ahead of time to make it attractive but you can always advertise a TIA budget along with the asking rent so prospective tenants know you are willing to put up some money to improve it to their liking.  

Can you put aside say 200k in the event of a disaster? 

I can see in apartment deals if reserves were at a minimum and floating debt and sponsor taking fee's off the top and its like I see on BP were folks are constantly putting rental increases and appreciation into their day one profromas. 

We were also thinking of trying to put a cap for the smaller units since their rate goes up as the $ amount and sqft goes down.

I am planning to move this summer and really want to put my house up as an MTR given the high demand in Wilmington, NC!

I am connected to investors that will bring the money if I bring the deal besides anything I'll put in myself.

You will then have a few options with that rent money....you can put it into principal or you can start saving it to purchase yet another property.

put 5k to clean it up and rented out right awayLessons learned?

I’m all in on this market as well, every dollar I’ve earned and then some has been put into investing in this market.when rates were 3 percent I was telling anyone and everyone to get as much borrowing power at fixed terms as you can.

You could suggest them to put their rent into escrow until the leak is rectified, but a rent decrease seems a bit excessive unless the kitchen is totally destroyed and or unusable.