(Because the rule is that you have to have lived in it for 2 of the 5 years immediately prior to the sale.)

Use the 50% rule to account for expenses outside of P&I as a barometer for your other expenses.

There's gas at the street but not to the building so that would mean hiring a gas-licensed contractor to install which, on top of the cost of the heater, would rule it out for me.

Read your contract carefully (both of mine were identical, just names switched out) because there are important deadlines.Good luck

Because I am new to the scene, the area, and a lot of the rules of investment in the USA, as well as Texas itself I was hoping to meet as many people as possible and start to better understand the market.

The tenants we had to visit personally decided to stay and are following the rules, at least for now, we have had no complaints and the smell is no longer noticeable.

@Chris Mason is calling it a 2nd home an option, or does it being a duplex rule that out? 

Verify with a cpa they can be a wealth of information- mine are very helpful and worth what I pay and better than I am at knowing how to use the rules to my advantage. 

Two rules:1) replacement properties must cost as much as relinquished properties, which you meet2) ALL of your cash proceeds from the sale must be reinvested to avoid any tax....you can add some cash to the deal but you can’t keep any of it. 

@Mindy JensenKiyosaki has said repeatedly that he suspects it's not an accident at all that personal finance isn't taught in schools.The first rule of life: have rich parents.Sadly, my parents would not have been able to teach something they completely didn't understand themselves.But then again, I've known plenty of children born to affluent parents and very few of them were worth a tinker's damn."