At that point in time, you have some level of flexibility when you are dealing with the borrower.

You can of course explain that reducing your expenses helps to keep their costs lower.$200 seems pretty reasonable.

One of my places was not renting well in June and when I lowered the price a bit, I got a bunch of bookings for July. 

Alternatively, should I just wait until 2020 when interest rates are higher and prices are lower to invest? 

Properties will be old, most on the historical registry, cap rates will be 4-8%, & prices high. 35204 will be lower prices & somewhat of a forgotten area of Birmingham.

Later in life you can make up some BS story about why the juniper tree is incredibly important to you on a deep and personal level.

I understand this will lower my credit score and as multiple lenders each get my credit score/report, I am concerned that it will heavily impact my credit score negatively.Are there strategies that you recommend to workaround this or is there a way to do this effectively without heavily impacting your credit score?

One would be to lower purchase price to cover those expenses and get work done after settlement before winter sets in and causes even bigger headaches when things start to fail. 

Under the new tax cuts and jobs act, the same income amount is now in a lower marginal bracket.

https://www.har.com/content/newsroom/Houston Real Estate Highlights in June Single-family home sales rose 1.8 percent year-over-year, with 8,518 units sold, the largest one-month sales volume of all time;Days on Market (DOM) for single-family homes declined from 50 to 48 days;Total property sales reached record levels, rising 1.7 percent, with 10,115 units sold – the first time that number has broken the 10-thousand mark;Total dollar volume increased 6.6 percent to slightly more than $3 billion;The single-family home median price rose 2.6 percent to $245,000, reaching an all-time high;The single-family home average price increased 4.3 percent to a record high of $316,463;Single-family homes months of inventory was at a 4.1-months supply, the highest level since last August and equal to the national inventory level;Townhome/condominium sales rose 4.9 percent, with the average price down 1.7 percent to $211,050 and the median price down 4.1 percent to $163,000;Leases of single-family homes climbed 4.7 percent with the average rent up 3.9 percent to $1,877;Volume of townhome/condominium leases fell 4.2 percent with the average rent up 6.7 percent to $1,662.