Paint goes along way,, pick a neutral color and use it in all the units,, Your contractor may have great ideas but the key is to work within your budget get the units done one by one and rent ready every day they are down your loosing money..

Fans that blow to the exterior are the best bet.Then you have to make sure tenants run them.You can hardwire them to the same switch as the light so they go on every time, ORyou can install an automatic humidity sensing switch that makes the fan go on when the humidity in the room gets to high.

That provides light at the end of the tunnel for the seller and her kids.

@Michael J Callinan  You would so if this is only a one time thing for you it would not make sense, but we buy lightly used furniture from a furniture rental and staging company so normally we are staging regardless so our units our lightly furnished. 

A better question is to find out if you can refinance into an FHA 203K or 203K streamline loan (for light rehabs), from your standard FHA.

Two days before rent was due my tenant asked if I had been at their house the night before because the garage door was up and the light upstairs was off that they usually leave on. 

As soon as I and renewed the lease the tenant wrote me this long message with all these thing wrong, including drain smells bad(she’s been putting bleach down the drain to kill the odor, the lights in the kitchen and bedroom are flickering(this ones easily fixable) & the bathroom floor is in-caving because of water damage(she suggested a new shower door).

If it's the latter they can steal be a positive light in your endeavors and talk to you and occasionally take a look at seeing what you are doing.

At one point, I knew that for a full interior cosmetic rehab (new paint, flooring, cabinets, countertops, light fixtures, plumbing fixtures, appliances, etc), that I was spending almost exactly $14,500.

You are light years ahead of your peers by getting into land investing vs. houses.