VRBO rented very quickly at a very high rate which will eat all my loss to lease and vacancy for January.

I turned them into boarding houses and I am cold eating good rental amounts. $500 a month per room.

Why are they in the middle of making or eating dinner?

If you can churn them quick, you can control the fees of HM... if you are new and it's going to take a while to fix it and you might misprice it leaving it languishing on the MLS, those fees will quickly eat through profit.It also depends on your market and skills. 

Another option is just to eat the cost   to repair things and take it as a lesson learned and find better tenants.

It can be the difference of a few thousand dollars a year from your bottom line..... thats just how I look at it personally, and Ive had to build systems/teams to make things go to not eat up the added profits in travel costs to/from them.

Some friends in NYC bought/held two leases on condos to do this, now they don't have that option.2) Conventional wisdom has suggested that you can't have your cake and eat it, too.

I've looked into the idea of multi family and renting the other one out to eat into the mortgage and save some capital to reinvest.

I racked up $25k in 0% interest credit cards, I borrowed $5k from my Dad, I borrowed against my 401(k), I sacrificed eating out and cable TV, I did whatever I needed to get the project done.  

@Dominic Jones alright awesome we will exchange contact info soon enough.By the way if anyone in the DMV area and are familiar with Whole Foods Market in Columbia, (currently where i work) would like to come meet up and chat or eat some healthy foods with a slight discount on me...COME ON DOWN!