You certainly don't want to blow the corporate veil as that defeats the purpose of having an LLC in the first place, nor want the IRS to look at it as a series of gifts which unnecessarily eats into your lifetime exclusion and annual exclusion. 

If that is the case and you can't just expand the house plan to also pay for demolition which is not a ton but could eat into your profit.

I'm struggling with whether I can have my cake and eat it too. 

We dislike debt by nature  because we both grew up eating government cheese in families where money was always super tight, so our first instinct is to slay the debt. 

There was so much food available courtesy of the tenants the mice didn't bother eating the poison.

If not you have a money problem and you either need to find deals, work at your day job, or a eat a lot of ramen noodles.

So you're gonna eat the cost for improvements.

Also I'm funding a portion of this from a HELOC and that int payment will eat into some cashflow. 

Also be aware that HOA fees can eat your returns alive and if you were to apply HOA fees to a mortgage in many cases you would be able to afford a far more expensive SFR with no HOA. 

All people need to eat and most people need to go to the grocery store at least one time per week.