The Gaslight District is sought after for single family owner-occupied houses, so if people are spending serious money to live in the area, it seemed like it would be a good place for our daughter and her friends to live, which turned out to be the case.

Ultimately, we would love to spend $200,000-$300,000 to purchase a condo or apartment. 

Or if you’re willing to spend 15 minutes with them, walk through it with them.

( which you can find out either from a realtor or an appraiser ( i would trust the appraiser more). so if the cost of work does not add a lot more to the NOI to raise the value past what you are spending, then it's not worth doing, unless you can predict the future and know that the value of the property will appreciate in that area and you can make money on the back end when you sell.

(I think of it like this ... every dollar I don't spend on is a tool to be invested) I am building a taxable mutual fund portfolio (I think of this as my personal bank) that will buy properties 1 at a time.

I find it crazy the amount of money people are willing to spend to vacation in a closet sized house for a couple days.

We don't seem to have a problem here and I've always used the same code on my lockbox, but you bring up a good point, perhaps there's a group of Codebreakers out there that spend their time figuring these lockboxes out. 

Otherwise, make sure the property is in a good location and you spend some money/time to really clean it up initially and find good tenants, being 1 hr away isn't too bad. 

Repairs: The previous owner did not spend a ton on repairs.

A quick background on me. i served 8 years in the military, and ended up getting out due to excessive amount of time i had to spend away from my family.