...It will only be expensive to do that if fresh wire with grounding conductor has to be put in.

Use these numbers to estimate cost of fresh paint.Before meeting with the contractor, make a list of every repair you can think of, and get some type of cost per unit figure from him.  

I have seen all the folks come through my brokerages fresh out of guru school or a site like BP were they are building their power teams but have never bought anything.. and their expectations of what a realtor can and should do is totally unrealistic to reality. there are agents in my market here in Portlandia were I live.. that work pretty much exclusively with investors.. but boy its hard to break into their club.. they have their for real buyers who are regulars and known to them to be able to close with cash in 5 to 10 days.. that's what it takes in the northwest if you buying a distressed asset with day one upside.

The house is outdated, ugly wall paper, laminate butcher block kitchen counters, appliances are old but they do work, and needs a coat of fresh paint.

@Adam Browning welcome to BP from a fellow fresh new face. 

All profit after reserves for maintenance/cap ex/etc will rolled into new investments.For the sake of the conversation let's say this was a fresh refinance on a BRRRR so we have 75% LTV. 

(i.e. if it was sold 6 months ago in ugly condition for $200k and is now fresh on the market with updates at $300k, I take note that this is a Fix-n-flip and I can learn from that other investor what works, and how nice it looks.

My partner and our business is still pretty fresh, only about a year.

I began doing renovations on the vacant units, completely gutting them and starting fresh.

You'd be surprised how cheap and easy fresh paint, new flooring and countertops, and a few improved fixtures cost, and how much they increase the value of your property.Also, I personally love the duplex strategy, so much so that some of my clients recently designed a coffee mug for me that says "SFRs are nice, but have you considered a duplex?"