I bet you're in demand in the Triangle area.

Your best bet is to seal up & repair everything you can, keep vegetation away from the building, make sure there's no food around (like pet food or bird seed) & that the tenant keeps their place clean & food-free.

You best bet would be to get an electrician to look at and get an accurate estimate to evaluate if it's worth doing.

If you read more of the BiggerPockets forums you will find that in places like Florida and other highly volatile areas, betting on appreciation is more like gambling.If it is a long term buy and hold and you can sustain the annual negative cashflow, then it makes sense.  

I bet...

I have to do a little extra work at the end of the year to give the numbers to him in a nice format but there's not much to it.I don't think I'd get quickbooks just yet if you only have the one property.Basically, all you need to do is track your payments (i.e. expenses), rents, and taxes and insurance.The columns I put in the spreadsheet for expenses are:1) House address (Crete - Dale Dr)2) Date of transaction3) Brief description4) Amount5) Account paid from type (i.e. cash, check, credit card)6) Check number (if checking)7) Account number or bank name (last 4 of credit card or bank name)8) Vendor name (i.e paid to).

There are many factors at play and trying to bet on appreciation is how I see the most investors go broke.

Nice 4br 3200 SQ/FT typical cookie cutter neighborhood...And I am betting it sells within 2 weeks of listing for close to 400k.

You are betting against the insurance company. 

Bloomberg wrote about Sam Zell, famous value investor, in a May, 2010 article, “Zell’s Firm Raising $500 Million for Brazil Propertyâ€: “Billionaire investor Sam Zell’s Equity International is seeking to raise about $500 million to step up investment in Brazilian real estate, betting interest rate increases will fail to stem demand as the economy grows at the fastest pace in two decades.