Consider paying for a professional cleaner to really make the property shine.

Do not be judgmental, dont tell him he is disgusting, but talk about makeing sure carpets are cleaned etc.Also, MAKE SURE you learn your state rules. 

Fixing up the interior should be around $5K to $7K for carpet and paint, and cleaning. 

Consider paying for a professional cleaner to really make the property shine.Staging, Staging, StagingThis is one of the most important ways you can make your property sell faster and be more appealing to buyers.

I do have some questions about it but I'll cover those elsewhere; I don't want to clutter up this post with that.Am I correct in understanding that if I decide that a house needs, say, paint inside & out, carpets, a new dishwasher and over-the-range microwave, a runny faucet fixed, and moderate landscaping work, I can't do any of that myself, and also can't hire contractors to do it, but must  hire a General Contractor to manage all the work?

Consider paying for a professional cleaner to really make the property shine.

When we found this deal, there was apparant damage to the carpets in the basement from pet waste, which I immediately thought was an excellent opportunity to get into this house as I was willing to spend some time and money rehabing, where most homebuyers wouldn't be.

The one couple even steam cleaned the carpets.

@James Galla hopefully I understand this right so are you saying if you set aside 20k for a rental property that you bought and say you need to replace the carpet and it cost 2k you would take this expense out of your income from the property in a gradual manner to replace those funds but not explicitly continue to take out money once those funds have been replaced because over time this would become disporportional. 

the key is finding a good cleaner which is the your #1 contractor critical to your business.If you have a local SF bay area Airbnb, there is a bay area startup called "getproperly" that is a cleaning calendar app plus a convenient way to find cleaners in the area that are specific to STR (Short term rentals).Once you get beyond a certain number and/or you get a lot of bookings, you may want to hire a "cohost" first.