Keep in mind that some of these obnoxious transfer taxes are not considered state or local taxes for tax deductions but rather increase the basis of the property as part of acquisition costs.

The amount it would've cost us to make it a duplex wouldn't have made sense for us to  go back and make it a SFH.

If you were to buy a $100,000 home you would need $10,000 + closing costs to close.

I gave the tenants the option to either maintain the lawn themselves or to have my lawn company maintain it at an additional cost in their rent.

Again, I'm not local so I'm just taking every cost and push-back on progress at face value.It's $80 per door, per year, plus the one time inspection fee, which I was thinking was $180, but don't recall exactly right now. 

We had to replace all of the carpets with wood, costing us over $5K.

Hopefully they accept the increase because it sounds like it will cost you thousands to turn it over for a new tenant.

It's a cost of doing business.

my goal is to keep it as simple and low cost as possible.   

There is a significant upfront cost associated with this but I have calculated it will average 2.2 years per building to save the cost I’m currently paying for oil.