One site that can give you a general idea of costs for your area is www.homewyse.comAdditionally, as concerns standards of quality, that is almost entirely affected by solid communication: you and your husband being perfectly clear to the contractor as to what you expect, as well as he or she asking questions, taking good notes and measurements, writing a thorough estimate, and a detailed contract (min. 10-12 pages in my opinion).

It will be slow, but if I target specific things I can measure results.  

I like to break them down into Taxes (Actual), Insurance (Actual), Maintenance (12%), Management (10%), and Capital Improvement Reserves (7%) to find your un-leveraged return as a measure of the strength of the deal, then add in mortgage expense to find your Cash-on-Cash return.

Stop by home Depot with your  Kitchen measurement (from the 3 bedroom) and price out a kitchen there.  

Run all the good and bad scenarios on a spreadsheet.Be sure to have enough Management Reserve Measure all potential risk.

Measuring risk should be determined by the amount of equity in the properties.. 25K, 50K... 200K?  

Without measuring or surveying, a casual drive-by resulted in would-be bidders to conclude that they were buying two finished lots in a developed subdivision with an HOA. 

Mortgage lenders often use a more stringent algorithm to calculate credit scores than other types of financing.

., your top price drops by about 10K for the 100/door measure to 79K and 76K for 10% cash on cash.Looks like you have some room to move here. 

And I am driving my self a bit crazy.I am measuring every possible metric to help justify a decision.