Our idiotic city council will undoubtedly continue to retard growth, fail to plan for the inevitable, and blow resources on identity politics matters instead of what they truly should be investing time, money, and energy working on. 

Distressed sales are far less likely to feature cleaned-up, fixed-up interiors that we commonly see in MLS sales.

Home shows featuring the newest home trends for 2020 showcased quartz counter tops of white, gray, slate and blue.Quartz is one of the best choices for durability as well.

I like the search features: https://www.biggerpockets.com/search

The accounting features in Appfolio are pretty solid and most everything else is too.

Should we “ruin” all the original features by modernizing it for its future being a rental?

My wife and I have nearly an identical goal to yours.

I was also curious if bottom floor units are generally less desirable and will, by default, always command a lower price compared to an identical upstairs floorplan. $45k is a lot to pour into one of these units but I'm wondering how much more we would realistically net compared to not doing any rehab or maybe doing partial rehab.

I like the search features: https://www.biggerpockets.com/searchUse the Bigger Pockets glossary to learn more about real estate terms that may be new to you: https://www.biggerpockets.com/rei/glossaryAlerts can be really helpful too: http://www.biggerpockets.com/alerts

I'd start by evaluating the actual houses and features of each.