Mostly focused on the cashflow #s, so want to try and find somewhere reasonably priced with some upgrades needed, in a strong rental pocket...please let me know if you have any ideas - would love to work with you!

Ask him what value he would add for the upgrades you have.Here is what an appraisal will look at.Garage size might bump you a tiny bit, but honestly probably not much.

Over the weekend one of my duplexes got broken into.  

If the property is presently in too crappy a condition to finance, that'll be true in six months unless upgrades are made.

I was there last month for a bit and spent half of my time on the phone dealing with broken furnaces in Ohio! 

I buy property from the 1880-1920 all the time and don't have to deal with anything other than brining them up to modern code...but in my locale, that's only required if you start doing work...ie if I don't touch the electrical I don't have to worry about upgrading it, but as soon as I touch it...BAM!

Altogether I was looking at about 30k in renovations BEFORE we even got to the more topical kitchen, bathroom, and painting upgrades.

Our 6-plex has a commercial sized one (circa 1980's) that they finally upgraded after it overflowed several times when the 4 motors would randomly smoke & stall.

Do you fix only what is broken? 

Always keep income as the driving factor when making decisions on cosmetic upgrades in a rental.