That included no exterior maintenance, just landscaping and maintaining the community spaces. 

The house was built in the '60s and was extremely well maintained.

I'd still plan on maintaining my CA RE license and looking for properties here since I've lived in SoCal forever and know the area.Been speaking with a few realtor affiliates as well to get pointed in the best direction.

CapEx is to maintain or restore the original quality and nature of the property.What you are talking about is Capital Improvements - so assuming that your property has no deferred maintenance or life/safety issues, then the best way to determine what improvements to make is to go visit and tour the property that has the highest rent in your market and compare that to your.

In addition to getting input from the landlords on how they maintained the respective properties, we also checked out the home they were living in to see the conditions.

Also, with a loan where the borrower pays capital + interest, the capital payment make you lose interest money since it applies to a lesser amount than the 10 000$ used in the example.Also, if you refer to flip123.com (which is the website of a previous BP's podcast guest), he was able to maintain ROI over 300% while flipping houses over several years (and also made a million in profit over 50 flips).If I were you, it would be a no brainer.

And the closer the properties are the easier they are to manage, repair and maintain. 

Try to address their issues, maintain your property and establish that your relationship is one about mutual respect.

The house is in very good condition, it was well maintained and is in a decent neighborhood.

What are the condition of the appliances, are there any, trees - how many and are they overhanging on the house which means I need to get my tree guy - I learned from a property I bought that had a nice yard but for living in it not renting since it's a cost to maintain, size 3/2 are good in my area and not so much 2/1 depending on the area - I live in a college town but a 2/1 in a family neighborhood isn't going to rent well, age recently for me as I lowered my range to include older, pre-1980 to 1960ish,  homes so now I have to consider electrical and plumbing, overall condition of the property.I can't speak for a fix and flip but I would suspect they may look at the property for "some" of the same things - maybe not.