Just curious because I'm of the fan of doing as much as I can to save money and to know its done correctly.  

Regarding creating raving fans, that will come from performance, consistency and communication more than your return structure.  

My boyfriend is a huge BP fan, has a ton of books and we are trying to start out and get on track to financial freedom.

I'm not a "big government" fan, but being a landlord is a situation where the lives of other people hang in the balance. 

You should definitely have reserves in case you need to replace a sofa,tv or bed and you should do that immediately or you are hurting your business.I am a huge fan of STR properties and they can be a great investment!

I'm not a fan of using all your liquidity to pay off debt, but if you are sure you can get the LOC, I would be more interested.

I also grew to be a fan of having contractors come out and ask them questions about the job so I learned what to do myself.

I'm a big fan of East Hartford and am out there often. 

Second one was used when I bought it as well to move into the 3rd unit I have when I finished the rehab on it and now 3 months later the control board went out and a fan, costing me $555So my thoughts are, lesson learned, but what’s my solution to keep tenants happy yet not bankrupt myself on appliance repairs?

I'm not a fan of the setup but there are a lot of details I don't know so it's hard to say.