If I get it sparkling clean quickly, attract a great pool, show it smoothly... 

Have you contacted the owner yet or what methods do you typically use?

Most new people getting into real estate try to find step-by-step methods where the numbers fit at some percentage rule of thumb.

And that's why I will work with them to clean up their credit and report their rental history to the credit bureau.

However, clean them out and fix them up.Now, I will not go into war zones,  I particularly don't feel that I should bring my gun with me to work or oversee a project, or my car will vanish within 30 seconds of parking it. 

As such, you can within the 401k have multiple individual participant accounts - one for you and one for your wife - assuming your wife is a documented employee of the business.You could not roll a Roth IRA into such a 401k, but I think you mentioned that your funds were in a traditional IRA.With the 401k, there are still proscribed methods for documenting and bookkeeping so as to independently value your account and that of your wife, but the ability to combine the funds for investments is much easier than in the IRA realm.

Just some minimal clean up and shes ready to roll.

It is ok if things look dated, but make sure everything is safe, clean and operational.

The main street has cleaned up with a lot of remodeling going on.

I have a different method than Michael Paris on this one, I give out an rfq to the lumber yard, I have the architect call out types of wood, bolts, and other accessories (osb, doug, etc) to obtain apples to apples bids; on my rfq I put any miscalculations in quantity is going to come from their end. price lock for 2 months.