@Avery Hill welcome and congradulations in your career choice .. its such a rewarding business if it is done right and a little luck always helps to.. but, hard work is the key .. there is a ton of free information you can start to learn right here on BiggerPockets .. but, i would get your Re lic first before mind melting and trying to learn to much at once .. that being said dont wait to long ..

You want to weight the risk against the rewards before making a $2.5 million investment whether instate or out.

Best way to stick it to the man is to succeed and the most rewarding success often comes from overcoming tough situations.You are asking us to foot the bill for your debt...that's what gets members here worked up.  

If I was your choice I'd donate most of the money besides what I need to get back from the renovation to a alternative school to helping kids learn about about construction and how renovating houses really brings back life to neighborhoods I would not charge any labor on the project just materials this is really awesome your doing this hopefully when I get bigger I can do the same helping others is truly the most rewarding thing!!!

I fear that if your tenant gets rewarded for her actions, she'll just hit you up again.

In some markets, there is not enough to make it worthwhile to split (risk vs reward).  

You'd have to decide the risk/reward profile of each, I don't have an opinion on that.Last thing, on the ATM pro-formas they will often show an even higher IRR by including the depreciation benefit. 

Others have mentioned it but doing your own due diligence and finding comps on a property by yourself is not too difficult and also very rewarding.

Reward would have been slightly higher in this case but risk would have changed for me.  

Real estate has been rewarding.