My day job is for a paper company.

The new wall or layout may be slightly different than what you have now, and the pipe isn't that expensive. 

We took them a napkin sketch of the proposed kitchen layout with rough sizes of the walls and where appliances would be.

IE what looks best on paper.. and forgetting that the market prices for risk.. you go for the higher cap rates your taking on greater risk should be no surprise there.. we see investors from low cap rate markets go through this learning curve all the time.. so with cap rates at 4 or 5 in those same markets I suspect the issue suddenly go away.. its the quality of the asset and the tenant base.. bottom line.. throw in city rules which can be researched up front.. 

Use paper towels because you don't want to spread the mold.Having said all of that, if this is your first rental; I'd look for something else. 

Begin a paper trail.

Lay out a healthy down payment, stay in warm weather areas and look for good schools (in as much as I can trust public schools, but that is another story). 

Unless a property returns an estimated 15% or so on paper I do not make an offer.

-Use a third party service Legal Zoom or another company to do all the paper work-Keep everything local including your bank accounts-Even if you have an account with a national bank with branches in your new state, still create a new account specific to that state.

I won;t lay out a plan for this, but I will tell you this.The one with all the leads is King.Focus on lead generation strategies THAT WORK, and everything else will fall in place!