Such improvements can significantly enhance your property's appraisal value.For the roof, consider setting aside a fraction of each paycheck for maintenance.

Turning your primary home into a rental should be a easy task.

We are on their maintenance requests immediately but we explain that cosmetics, improvements, and enhancements are done when our properties are empty. 

@Huggy Ford- thanks  1)  try  contacting the smaller to mis size credit unions and banks in the La Jolla  area  for  options  2)  do some research on other nearby properties that  are in the same  situation to  see if you can  find  recent lenders that  have made loans to these properties  3) if you still live in the  property  definitely try to  complete this  task BEFORE  you move out of the  property as  getting a  primary residence loan  will be  much  easier than  getting a loan on it when its an investment property .

You wont need a real estate license to do a lot of management tasks.

Doing all these tasks will streamline your applicants so you're getting the best of the best in your applicant pool and ultimately avoiding situations like these!

I love rental manager for certain tasks and feel it is lacking in other areas. 

We have been trying to figure out the best way to enhance it but thought the cabinet/storage space would be appealing to guests. 

Cap Rate is low, and a big maintenance task would put this in the negatives quickly, but I'm hoping since it's a recent flip that those will be minimized, but you never truly know that for sure.

There are data management tools; there are services that for a profit to themselves will perform certain tasks, most notably "screening" both people and animals; you can outsource accounting, admin tasks, service and repairs; you can "market" on whatever the latest hot site is; but if you do not fundamentally understand WHAT is being done, how it should be done, and what a good result looks like, you will be throwing some of YOUR profits away.