Should we take advantage of the de minimis safe harbor election on repairs vs improvements?

Are there any other strings attached I.e other code improvements required?

Maybe you buy with 75% leverage but after improving the property and raising the income, the value goes up and by year 2 or 3 you are at 55% to 65% LTV. 

The fact that some tenants have a lease that expires in 45 days could be a good thing as you could vacate those units to improve them, then offer them to the existing tenants in the other units at an increased rent and if they take it fix up the units they move out of.This sort of value add can be a very smart strategy, you just have to know how to run the numbers carefully and hold to them so that you are not doing all this work for free.

My background is professional sales and marketing, and I grew up in the home improvement/construction industry.

Assessed Value: $369,851 Percent Improvement: 81.09% Land Value: $69,930 Tax Amount: $4,119.46 Improvement Value: $299,921 Tax Account ID: Homeowner Exemption: H Tax Rate Area: 1-002 Tax Status: Current Tax Year: 2016   Foreclosure Record Recording Date: 01/30/2017 Document #: 2016-264310BK-PG -  Min.

I agree with the prior comments, the only real duplexes now in Northside, and that's an area that is seeing improvement, but is not a very desirable area at the moment IMO.  

If not, at some point when you sell it, you will pay capital gains tax on the appreciation between its value and what it was bought at, either by the LLC or you.Going forward as a rental property, you would convert its basis to a fair market value (or what you paid + capital improvements, whichever is lower) and start depreciating the building % of that (usually 50-70%) on a 27.5 year schedule.

Love improving my processes and procedures!

Obviously this means I would be an out-of-state owner and would be relying on good advice from brokers/property managers, etc to choose wisely.But I am hands on person as well and the idea of being able to make later decisions about the property to help improve its return is also attractive to me, compared to a NNN lease on some other kind of property.