With the market the way it it, all of the really good contractors are super busy and usually outside my budget so you are left with people who aren't really concerned with the timeline or the quality because they have 10 more investors calling them to walk properties.

I also have had lenders say they are doing a desktop appraisal, which means outside only.

This would be our first investment property outside of our House Hacked Primary residence.

I would also prefer to invest outside of the west coast states. 

We have warned most everyone that outside of the house needs painting, and we will do that soon.

Full transparency, my wife is concerned we're going to be "downgrading" substantially. (2) any thoughts on what are some of the areas outside SF which lend themselves nicely to what we are trying to accomplish?

Don't pay an up front fee outside of an appraisal.

What is the outside made out of? 

^6 month old townhouses with bedrooms upstairs. Would it make sense to have bedrooms cooler than the rest of the house? Sleeping in a bedroom that warm a bad experience for tenants to be when you advertise central air.

Indeed that would be my preference, but my network is completely outside the real estate world, so the few syndication opportunities that came my way did not convince me, I couldn’t get past the “this person must be desperate if they are asking money to me”, so I never pulled the trigger, it really just felt like giving away $100k on good faith.