I think that if you have a choice of making it into a third bedroom and private bathroom with its own entrance.

There is no one way and it depends also on how you choose to operate your business.Monthly rent...dependant on property, market drivenUtilities....specific to property and marketsinternet, cable....market drivenTenant or landlord costs.. market and landlord choice

Karen, I won't be attending but I can recommend a tip that could save you thousands of dollars: Leave your credit cards at home.Most of the free / low cost seminars give you a few crumbs of information but are mainly sales presentations designed to "upsell" you on more expensive "boot camps" and/or "mentoring programs".They all follow the same classic sales formula, they'll tell you that it normally costs $X (you can even go on their website and see that price) but "today only" or "only for the first N people to sign up" they're putting on a special deal.They'll do the whole "this is how much it would cost individually but here's an incredible package deal" etc.

The best choice we made was performing full inspections, and asking the owners to fix the items discovered.

I buy turnkeys (my personal choice) so I wouldn't bring in extra cash if appraisal comes in lower.

I'll offer to include the cost of moving her stuff (ave cost local move is 2,300) to a storage facility of her choice in town. 

I'm trying to decide whether to invest as an individual, through my personal checking account, or through my small business.

I understand when it is a bunch of poor choices that add up but I wonder if just the shower head is enough to say hey not this one.   

I was thinking of putting it in an index fund but that would be more for a 5-10 year timeline. another option would be individual stocks but there is a lot of risk involved in that.Any advice would be greatly appreciated and thank you.

I agree to what the other posts here had to say....just one point, I find that I  don't put such a focus on 3 times the rent, simply because it's  not a one size fits all, a single person has much much less expenses than a married couple with 3 kids.........I look at each situation individually