Yes, to be more clear, I want to get the equity out of a rental property, in order to start using the BRRRR method to accumulate properties faster.  

We scheduled the home inspection a few days later, which came back clean & had listed the issues we had already identified during the initial walk-through - it was extremely helpful having a REA that also invests in real estate, manages his own properties and knows what to look for during a home inspection. 

The reason is that encourages tenant to pay last month rent and leave you place clean to get their larger deposit back.

There are too many bad investors who waste the time of a Realtor by asking him or her to submit low-ball offers in the hopes that the "Spray & Pray" method of buying will work.

(These numbers are the state's calculated projections.)It seems that, based on so many examples of Biggerpocket investors, if done correctly, I could come out ahead using something like the BRRR method and eventually be able to pull out my initial $49,000 and then repeat with another deal. 

I want to have clean documentation so the people renting know the rules and I have something to fall back on when I question is brought up. 

You can find properties by driving for dollars, mailing owners, getting lists of code violation, evictions, property management companies, networking, etc but the most effective method is cold calling the owners directly.

My question really is would you let my current house look like **** being worth at least 350k and hopefully make the new house worth more because it looks so much better or just clean everything up and make both houses look great and raise property value that way?

A contractor that you know and trust with no history of such things is another story, where I would probably just let the contractor know I'd made a note of it and was giving them the benefit of the doubt based on their clean history - further explaining to them that I had to take that action/stance as a gesture to the tenant, and that I value their service.

Duplex tenants would be responsible for landscaping whereas the fourplex will require you to mow the lawn or clean the stairwell and common areas.I would probably take the duplex just because it would attract families with a little more money and probably have fewer complaints of noisy neighbors, parking, etc.