Long story short, after trying to sell it for 5-years, and spending more than $150K trying to maintain and improve it for sale, we lost the house to foreclosure because i spent all my money trying to maintain it.

I suspect that other factors in your financial profile will play into the answer.  

So what's the problem?Often times when I'm trying to find one of my old posts, the only way I can find it is to scroll through the pages and pages of them listed under "All Posts" for me.  That's hard to do though if ...

There's not a lot of detail in your post, and your profile isn't filled out.

I did some things right with that first rental (scheduling an open house instead of individual appointments, for example, and screening applicants) but there's definitely room for improvement.

Different ways I can improve the value without spending a ton of money?

As a project manager, I worked on site (painting, installing hardware, fetching materials) in addition to selecting and paying licensed tradesmen to improve the property with the direct knowledge and consent of the deed owners.

If I know I'm going to have capital gains , would it be best to spend the money that's going towards tax on the gain or spend the money on capital improvements to bring up the cost basis?

Ask your lender or realtor for a property profile.

Waco has seen huge improvements here and with the increase in tax revenue from tourism (magnolia) the government has even more money to spend on that.7.