If they have not paid taxes and/or mortgage, it was the banks house and they were buying it, but failed to complete their end of the bargain...

Without going through appraisal techniques, you can expect a fair option price the go between 25-75 % of the expected increases.

I bought a duplex to house hack and found out fairly late in process that it was section 8 tenants.

However, PVC can break fairly easily so PEX has generally replaced it for supply lines."

Enjoy the fruits of your labor today, exit as the market is high and demand is high, reinvent your strategy, turnkey as a lifestyle is something you will soon be able to capture, seems that you may be leaning in this direction fairly strong.You need to calculate your risk and rewards, you time saved, your ability to maximize your current exposure and define if the risk model is greater or lesser.

And if so, any suggestions on what volume or dollar amount this would logically take effect and still be fair to all of us?

The first issue I ran into was that I arbitrarily picked a rental amount that seemed fair to me without actually doing market research.

I am two semesters away from that fairly expensive piece of paper that is supposed to open many doors in life.

If I buy the property at fair market value and put between $1-3k into it for things like a new appliance, new carpet, fans, etc., this is not going to make the value skyrocket right away.

I'm fairly sure that people have, but I'm not certain since I haven't bought one myself or sold one for that matter.