My clients like to see increase in income and somewhat stable employment.Lastly, I set up the forms electronically - online forms. :)Hope I helped a little!

You could throw in a list of necessary work required to bring the property up to standards, with estimated dollar amounts, but your realtor should already know that info. 

You do so typically by increasing incomes (rents, ...) and reducing expenses.

If that is the case then use higher criteria next time to avoid someone like that (which is not a guarantee but increases your odds).

She recently just increased the amount on her line of credit so that if she sees a good house to downsize, we can move.

I’ve watched the value of my first purchase increase by 20% (some say it’s more than that) and it got me thinking - can I do something similar again?

It really could go either way - and it depends on the neighborhood you're in and if your pencil on the property requires immediate rent increases.

I feel confident that this property would require 20-30k in rehab costs, but is would increase the ARV to around 120k or more.

New layouts, moving walls or god forbid an addition...you’ll tear your hair out with SF’s nutty city approvals, and your neighbors will be all in your business if you’re increasing the size of the home. 

Wired smoke detectors are usually all interconnected, so if one smells smoke, the horns on all of them go off, but the signal that makes this happen is not standardized among manufacturers.