An investor I know is under contract to sell a rental house of his for a national drug store and a bank location. 

Being a chef, Bourdain was shocked that there were no stores or supermarkets within a reasonable distance of the areas he visited, but there were several fast food places that managed to stay in business.Until there are jobs for people to try to make their life better, then there will be no revitalization.Even as most folks write off those areas, there are people who still try to get some sort of positive forward progess and that is what is good about the US.

I am not an accountant but intangible property will generally have something called "amortization," which in essence is similar to depreciation that allows you to write off the useful life of items like software, trademarks, other intellectual property, closing costs paid on a loan that can be deducted over the life, etc these are usually costs of assets or items paid at one time but allowed to be deducted over time.

We store the storm under the streets..

That item is called a Draft Hood by boiler manufacturers and everyone that I know of.  

I have bought this color from different stores & many different brands it always seems to look the same.I would leave the privacy fence up, most of us do like privacy.If you have to replace anything or make up grades, you want to go with more durable/indestructible features, but still want the place to look nice.  

MERS has nothing to do with loan applications, and doesn't store any such info.

-Added a closet to the Mother-in-Law bedroom-Replaced the water heaterNow, I realize these items won't add tens of thousands of dollars to the value but am thinking of listing the house for $184,900 which is near the higher end of the market for this neighborhood; I think I could list it for $189,900 and still draw interest but I'd like to sell ASAP.

It's going to cover a lot of the basics on finding deals, rehab strategies, and other items when you are looking and executing a rehab/flip property. 

His labor would be at some reasonable rate like $25/hr.Or better still, come up with an entire list of pricing for work items and then get a 25% discount off those items from him.