Next is the house still desirable or is it next to a highway, train, swamp, dump, or any other distraction and what are the neighboring houses like? 

Because we do not have two years of tax returns, making the amount of income that we need to have the desired Debt-to-income ratio.

Not to mention, real estate here is still immensely desirable by so many.

That will give you a great real estate education.A single family home is an asset that's pretty easy to get out of if desired so it's a good way to start in my opinion.

I'm pretty familiar with this neighborhood and it's an area that has some development to do before it becomes highly desirable.

For me I believe 3/2’s are way more desirable whether to sell or rent, and believe the money spent for the additional BR and BA always comes back.

But I still felt we were in an interesting situation where our lack of desire/drive to do these projects ourselves was going to make it so we would one day have to scramble to hire and pay for the projects anyway when the opportunity/time came to move.

Plus, until you have a contractor come out and estimate the work and get it appraised, you really don't know the rehab costs or the ARV - so that could also impact the desire to purchase.So, will it rent? 

I haven't seen a tremendous difference in desirability for 2 vs 3 bedroom homes.

I would repeat this until I had a number of homes in highly desirable areas.