The desirability of that will not decrease.  

What can often times be even more important than increasing rent is decreasing turnover. 

Currently the scenarios I consider are:1) Housing slumps: reduced liquidity and rent decreases ..2) Money lenders calling a loan for some reason..transferring title to LLC etc.3) Uninhabitable property... fire, flood etc... 

No management, no decrease in income, no CAPEX, no problems.  

Maybe the first neighbor over gets them, not sure, however, I can tell you that you are few lots over chances are decreasing to zero!

You won't have a tripod, off camera flash, or post processing.DSLR will offer more flexibility, and precision, but quality will be hardly noticeable especially as screen size decreases (cell phones/laptops).

If you can provide your current P&L some lenders will be able to get an exception and average your P&L in with 2015/2016 to decrease the business loss.If it is just a small amount of income you need, you could always get a rent schedule with your appraisal.

There's also quite a bit of value add potential because this is a commercial deal and decreasing utility expenses (while also raising rents to market rate, which they currently aren't) would directly drive up value.

In more astute owner/property manager interactions, the contractor will be TOLD to decrease their price ASAP or the contractor would be terminated for any future consideration.I would most definitely contact the contractor to get the low down as to why it is more, since the property manager won't do it.It sounds like since you are doing a la carte service as opposed to full service, you are getting some bad answers from the property manager. 

There is a reason for everything you just have to dig for it What is the employment rate,crime rate ,average wage ,cost of living, is population decreasing ,did a large employer leave town etc,etc