Investment Info:Large multi-family (5+ units) buy & hold investment.

Conservatively, I would plan on 12-18 months of lost rent (before rehab) and a signifcant amount of money/time to turn over the unit. 

Did your clients use a local or national design firm?

By "partial" I mean renovating the kitchen and bathroom, painting the place, re-tiling the floor and maybe adding some smaller features that can make a difference to prospective buyers, such as new A/C units, new internal doors, or maybe even sell the place furnished (home staging is not really an option here); with no or minimal demolition, and hopefully without electricity or plumbing issues.

That's where you buy a 1-4 unit property owner-occupied.

@Nathaniel LinnSecuring your househack now could work if you can time up having one of the units vacant to move into next year. 

I'd look at doing development deals as well. you can do joint venture, non recourse debt above 5 million in construction. we do deals in Columbus Ohio and miami florida if it is of any interest. columbus cost per door is much lower than in miami and we focus on micro units under 600 sq ft mostly for development to get higher density, higher lease prices per square foot, etc. there is a "affordable" housing deal that has 336 sq ft studios in columbus that gets about $995 in rent which is above $3. the normal single family rental gets in the $1.6 or so range even new construction 

They are free (or at least free up to a certain # of units) and offer  most of the same features  along with very friendly user interfaces for both tenant and landlord.  

The whole self management thing is nice in theory but when you get above 4-5 units, the number of issues that come at unwelcome times becomes frustrating. it's not the amount of hours, it's the persistent distraction / attention required.

We believe we can build for 200k a unit (very inflated number, most likely lower but using a conservative estimate).