You CAN do cash out refi on investment property and you CAN do a HELOC (harder to find a lender).If you buy a house CASH and below apprised value or you do work to increase the appraised value you can get UP TO 80% of the appraised value back out of it.

Adding another meter base and city water meter could increase your cost to build a lot, but lower the monthly expenses. 

If you already own the home you live in, then you can only use a FHA loan for a new property if you:1. are moving because of a work-related transfer2. an increase in family size requires a larger homedirect quote:“FHA will not insure more than one Property as a Principal Residence for any Borrower, except as noted below.

Another option to value the property is to project the NOI  at increased rental rates, but use a higher Cap Rate to discount the fact that you'll need to implement these changes.

BUT, the positive would be:+ Catagory A neighborhood with stable renters+ Betting on property value will increase over 10+ yr given the neighborhood+ Turnkey rental, leases in place till 2018Would these positives balance out the lower CAP rate?

Is there any potential to increase rent prices?

If you are doing it in excel - a receipt for $100 that consisted of $25 paint, $25 tools, $50 roof supplies.can be entered into excel like$25 paint$25 tools$50 roof suppliesAt the end of the year you can sum up all the costs by description and provide that to your accountant.A couple things to point outWhether you expense an item or capitalize it will depend on several factors such as if you are increasing the useful life of the item, making it ready for a different use or making it more efficient.

Owner pays utilities now, however it has 5 meters, and I would change that, generating a possible 7k increase yearly in income. 

For a couple - this number increases to 8 if husband-wife each own their independent properties w/o having each other's names on the title docs?

I would focus on repairing your credit. see a specialist (faster) or open credit cards little by little and pay them off each month. im not saying increase your spending, just saying instead of buying that tank of gas in cash use a cc and immediately pay it off. while your credit is repairing, start banking cash. build a budget and stick to it. 80K a year is good money, make it a goal of yours to retain as much of it as possible i.e. don't eat out, don't go to the local pub, drive a modest paid off car etc. once your credit is up and savings is up, use the 80k a year plus savings to get leverage. then use that leverage to buy your properties. if your looking for a get rich quick scheme, id advise u skip over RE. don't get me wrong, you can make money fast by flipping homes but you didn't mention having experience in that area so I assume you don't. another option if your really in a hurry is to find a partner with experience and cash, and see if you can buy into one of his/hers deals. you would have to market yourself for this and see what type of skills they may need that you have. maybe you can buy in and use your web development skills to beef up and/or maintain your partners website saving them money on outsourcing. that might be your ticket into a partnership. since you mentioned your helping your friend, maybe you can partner with him?