She ended up spending triple the amount of money she had budgeted to convert it- so I would proceed with caution.

If you could live forever, then the only real consideration would be how much you have to spend and how fast you want to grow. 

Sometimes it gets people off their bark-a-lounger and involved but many times people spend the money only to find out they need one on one help through a couple of transactions to have the knowledge and confidence to actually be successful.

. - My budget is about 250K for 1 house or less (not including rehab budget) - What would be a good area for a mix of appreciation and cash flow for a buy and hold? 

To bring the building to rent ready at your standard, you need to spend a lot of money. typically you will be spending around 10k per door to get a reasonable standard including HVAC etc. 

With your budget your looking at a property in the $45-$50k range.

A quick inspection gives you an idea of the condition of the roof and window, and water heaters and boilers/furnaces have a manufacture date on them to help you budget for their replacements.I guess it will be easier to have all that info in one place ready for you.

You may have missed it my original post that I have a fair sum of money in another 1031 that I have to spend - trying to identify/close on a bunch of SF units within the time constraints is no fun. 

I needed to spend over $10k to fix up the house and resell it.

Regardless of renting or selling, I'm looking at spending around $2,000 for smaller repairs which include paint, replacing carpet in the basement, and replacing a bathroom vanity.