Maybe I will change my mind in a few years but for now, the wounds are too fresh.

Tithing is best expressed in two ways; giving money to our churches, and practicing the underlying premise of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:25) who poured oil and wine in the wounds of a stranger. 

Unfortunately I wound up with a life changing situation that forced me to give it up. 

I wound up using my own money on a different property.  

Millions upon millions of jobs lost "forever" ("exported" to the "third world"), more millions lost half or more of their retirement accounts, creditors slashed and burned consumer credit to the point where, by the banksters' own numbers, some 74% of Americans wound up with "bad" credit (it was only 47% before they did that), ...Now, add in the knee-jerk responses in the lending industry and you've got a situation where only the elite of formerly middle-class wage earners can even hope to qualify for new home loans.In fact, the given the current housing shortage (yet more fallout from the crash), it is ONLY the dearth of lending which is keeping home prices from launching into interstellar space by suppressing demand.

Because we did the majority of the work ourselves, the total rehab budget wound up being around $30,000 (which includes adding a deck, fencing in the huge back yard, fixing the driveway and adding a paver front walkway.)

I don't know whats its like up there in Jersey but down here in Florida you need to pull a permit before you do any Demo work The house next door to me was vacant for a long time someone finally bough it right away they came in and demoed out the whole place with out pulling any permits The city code enforcement went on the war path wound up costing the guy BIG in fines

If the tenant is likely long term I wound split the cost as they offered but that's a subjective decision.  

Reading the forums and listening to the podcasts helped tremendously while we licked our wounds.  

I thank my lucky stars I never did because I wound up in investing in Charlotte and doing much better than I would have anywhere in NY metro.