FWIW a lot of PM's around here charge less than the typical 10% rate you see in "cash flow" markets.  

For what it's worth, the tenants do pay a fixed utilities charge of $125 charge combined per month, which is included in the rent number I gave you (I checked with the city prior to buying, who told me the previous 12 months bills had never exceeded $135).

The company told me the hole was too big to repair but I did look into repairing laminate and some things did pop up but not sure how reliable it is.My question is can I charge to have the whole countertop replaced so the counter is 100% back to normal or do I have to settle for just a repair?

How much did they charge?

You don't need $250K for that, so you aren't parking it all in one project, and projects can be relatively short term (allowing you to turn it over and charge some fees). 

Call the town and get a year's worth of charges.

I absolutely thought about somehow getting the money to buy my brother out because we were earning almost 3000 a month and the mortgage including escrow was only about 800 a month (and i have people for repairs so they aren’t too expensive), but the woman who was in charge of the duplex (living trust) while we were too young didn’t pay taxes and let the account accrue an escrow shortage and we started having to pay over 1800 a month just to catch up.

Everything gets charged, benefit from all rewards, I pay my monthly statement from my HELOC every month in full and carry no balance over (I get to write off all the interest paid on my HELOC in the first position), as interest on the HELOC is calculated differently from a traditional mortgage.

If you're charging premium rent with a nice rehab I'd replace with same features. 

What is REI Blackbook charging for what you want?