The mostly cosmetic renovation cost was about $35,000 which included refinishing HW FL in both units, extensive painting on the interior and some exterior porches, brand new SS appliances in each unit, exterior tuckpointing updated electrical, and some minor carpentry and landscaping.

It seems that every day a new condo or commerical project is being announced.

It's generally a good idea to make sure the subject property could rent out as either STR or LTR and still be profitable.That being said, after you do your homework about regulations and the projected performance as an STR, you can determine if your property is set up to compete against the higher performing comps in your sub-market.LTRs are a lot less effort, but STRs, if done right, will not get worn out as quickly as an LTR.

Then you can figure out if it’s worth it to you to do the project or if it would be wiser to spend your money on something else with a quicker rate of return.

Basically I will demo everything so that I can start the renovation process. 

During the refi step, the bank will appraise the newly renovated home based on its new value.

I intend to start doing projects here locally very soon though! 

I've been charging by project and not including the amount of time I'd have to go back and forth with the municipalities.

Even with access to the best data and risk modeling tools, trying to determine the projected amount of maintenance or capital expenditures proved to be very challenging.

A better metric for you to evaluate rental property performance is to take the annual CF and divide it by your all-in costs (not the current value) on the project so you can see what yields you are getting from your past-spent dollars.