Most of my info I'm basing this on is from this lovely article, if anyone cares:https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2017/mar/navigating-real-estate-professional-rules.htmlSo, I do understand that just making the election as a real estate professional does not necessarily mean that the properties are treated as non-passive, per se.Here's my question:If the properties are treated as non-passive this year, is there any way they can they go back to being passive for the 2020 tax year?

Shovel the snow from their sidewalk, bring them chocolates, coffee etc. 

Since credit scoring models treat hard checks on our credit in 14-45 day chunks, is it a good idea to do the refinance on my home as well as pre-qualify for the rental property together so that our credit scores aren't affected too much??

You should look at Columbus, Ohio I would recommend Toledo for houses around 50k and if you treat the tenants well they are perfectly reasonable to deal with.If you want to leverage 50k to get something 200k+ I’d definitely looking at Columbus the population and jobs figures are way better. 

Electrical ended up being around $16,500 for 2 reasons: 1) After getting 4 bids, the best quote was around $14k, so my budgetary estimate was just low to begin with; and 2) while my first electrician did ok, I did ultimately replace him toward the end of the project as I wasn’t happy with his attention to detail, pride of workmanship, and overall way his helper treated my other contractors.

Get a dated receipt that the house was treated for termites.

@Peter Walther In every state we cover, water is treated as a lien whether or not recorded.

And the kitchen was in pretty good shape as well.Our only surprise on this one was that it ended up having termites, and required about a $1,200 treatment.So roughly about an $18K profit after all soft costs and basically just cleaning it and treating for termites.

Treat them as a lender with fixed return or equity with share of profits if they're all passive (ie you do the work).Make sure you account/bill for your time.

If they are going to be a passive investor while you do all the work, this may be treated as a security under the rules and regulations of the SEC.