Keeping the properties separate is mostly for the different depreciable lives and it wouldn't matter a whole lot when you eventually go to sell the property.

The income is the same, the difference is how hard you work to achieve it.Parting thought, I also purposefully lag the top of the rental market in my personal portfolio...if a property I have owned for 4 years was rented at $900 and has a good resident then even though the value of that property may be $1250 I am still going to put this specific resident at $1050 so both the resident and my portfolio are winners each year and we have incentive to keep it that way.

I don't want to interrupt my cash flow and I don't want to keep dealing with the damage.

We ultimately decided to keep the other property and slowly renovate.

Indeed that is true, the idea is that you keep buying property and stack deprecation 

You can go through the renovation process and keep the rental.

My primary focus is Knoxville, Tennessee, but I'm also keeping an eye on Conway-Myrtle Beach, SC and South Florida.

Keep in mind the definition of a millionaire is based on net worth, not money in the bank.

They keep their real estate in a separate LLC. 

James,The benefit is keeping it off of your personal DTI, funneling into an entity, and simplifying the process as a whole.