The flow of money needs to follow the LLC structure you put in place (another reason to have one Operations LLC).

Go ahead and be willing to put in the money toward a good contractor if you're not doing the work yourself.

I put in my time in finding the deal, financing half of the down payments, finding tenets for the property and general upkeep and maintenance.

I find that converting the property into a duplex is a lengthy and costly process, and I want to start renting it legally without going through a long process, because I've spent for rehabs and don't want to put in more for now.

It might have been signed, but not yet put in the mail for delivery, and the former owner or a lienholder asked for a redemption price. 

REPS was actually an incentive purposely put in the law to encourage real estate economic activity.Regarding your question, it is my understanding you would not qualify for REPS, but if you have a more aggressive CPA, they might be willing to make the case.

It is also good to put in a lease where they can smoke, if anywhere, on the property if that is not already in there.

Once you get that tenant that does not pay the rent and you have to keep paying their electricity as you go through the eviction process you will understand that you should always pass the utilities on to put in the tenant's name as much as you can.In the duplex with the dryer state that the rent was set with consideration that that tenant would be paying for all of the electricity for the dryer use, including the use for the other unit's tenant. 

I then got distracted until I learned about the daily fines.

Money you can put in your own pocket if you know where to go with a deal.I can’t say if the cost for their training is better and more organized than reading free information available to you.