You're paying a lender who has never lent money before and they can be high maintenance.

I quoted Cardinal Kitchens and then Cardinal Kitchens via Lowe's and the price through Lowe's was actually a little lower.

Buy when market is high, buy when market is low.

These days with at least one Home Depot and Lowe's in every metro area, there are plenty of weekend warrior type home improvement DIY'ers.

My estimated monthly expenses (mortgage, taxes, insurance, PM fees, potential maintenance costs) comes to $2,040.

Also, I would have to do nothing maintenance-wise on a property like this. 

I'm probably a little higher on the equity side than most, but I figure if I have good equity, my debt service is probably relatively low compared to rental rates and will also help ride out the soft patches. 

Did your rent increases accompany any value add / deferred maintenance work?

I think you are saying that the listing price of a house that you want is 150k, and the seller will go as low as 140k and you are trying to find out if this is a good deal.

In the past year, we started a renovation to add the second bathroom but ran out of funds (this is an attic conversion and our contractor was way low in his estimate).