Just food for thought, not intending to be rude.Now for your ideas about the work you need to do: Kitchen - I assume you mean cabinets, counter tops and flooring...maybe appliances as well?

I just had a consultation with a US immigration lawyer about this yesterday :)EB5 is around 500K-1M of investing in a certified project that benefits a state or a city(from my understanding it's local projects like building a train station or similar etc...)the returns are very poor, but this solution is like a subsidized "loan" from the governmentand the only reward the country can give the investor is the appliance to a Green card.after this it is measured within 2-5 years since the inception of this "investment" (i write with a quotation becasue the return can be as low as 1-2%)it's literally an organized legit way to purchase a US green card.

Appliances

The cabinets and countertops in general are just dated, I think that and replacing the appliances would be the biggest things.

Desirability of the location can vary from block to block a that price point and the home almost always will need at least some repairs, and always paint, maybe flooring, appliances.  

To assess the deal, you'd need to provide figures on things like ... comparable prices for 3 BR, 1 bath homes in the area (to determine if $164,900 is a good deal), rent received per month, financing details (term [10,15,30 years], type [fixed, variable,etc], interest rate), and then all other expenses such as taxes, insurance, water/sewer, home owner's association, other maintenance costs, vacancy reserve (for when it's not rented), CapEx reserve (for when you need to buy new appliances, furnace, hot water heater, etc.).  

Meaning most parts of SJ will not support granite countertops, high end appliances etc., IF you were to put money into things like that you would be "over rehabbing" for that area and not see a return proportionate to the added expense.

Both were townhomes with HOA with missing appliances so very little competition from owner occupants or investors.

New siding, new roof, its gonna have new half bathrooms, new paint job, appliances are no more than five years old. 

Look at the condition of the asset, and estimate the roof expense, blacktop, appliances, a/c, etc.