Reporting the $20,000 of capital improvements will depreciate, so yes it will decrease your income a wee bit and will do so for the next 27.5 years.

Some tenants love gardening and may improve your yard.

My metric is simple, I want to put in as little of my own cash as necessary, and I want a (realistic), net $1,000 a month cash flow, after covering property management fees and debt service.If I bring in an investor, they get paid back/off first.I hold until Jesus comes back, therefore, I want to be in an improving neighborhood, not a declining one...

.- Your condo basis for capital gains is sale price - closing costs (6-10%) - purchase price + any capital improvements (new appliances) + depreciation recapture (if you depreciated it any, else ignore).

If you do improvements on a property and a buyer takes you to court because of workmanship, the broker could end up being sued also.In the Bay Area, both mlslistings.com and realtor.com display essentially all listings to the public.

There were some areas that they would avoid that have since improved.  

But don't permit him to do any other work unless authorized and contract is written.As far as improvement now reason  for higher rent.. that's yet to be determined.. worse case is drywall will be removed to do wiring inspection, and plumbing ,so might need to be ripped out. 

Other than depreciation you probably don't have much if any gain by the time you work back in unclaimed expenses and capital improvements.3.

He did capitalize most of the improvements accordingly.  

Buying a multifamily property that needs improvements is often going to be the only way to get value.