That's the sound of termites eating your investment.

That would be akin to a snake eating its own tail.Too much time on the internet can definitely lead to confusion on these topics.  

I might suggest taking what they can get, maybe eat some cash until they can refi or sell.

I was going to bootstrap every dime into my real estate business, and I was going to put myself out of the picture as something of a liability in the operation.2013-2015: It took 2 years, but I completed all projects and towards the end I continued expanding the portfolio some more to 12 bldgs and 15 doors.I am often told that my projects often reflect myself in a very clear way: I had never been comfortable in assets or projects I wouldn't be willing to "eat my own cooking".

I ask them to pick the place to eat.

At the same time, you are doing much better than most and although you don't have great cash flow they are not eating your lunch either.

Find a local small contractor that specializes in water damage and get them to bid the project making it crystal clear that it's you paying and not the fat wallet insurance company.

--We'd prefer the property be passive and property managed...while this certainly eats into profit (I've already budgeted this into the calcs outlined above), this has worked quite well at our other VR, but we have a great PM.  

So the lender is going to eat the interest when the wire came in on 9/12?  

It's probably unreasonable to expect the seller to eat the costs of the thing extending out, but let you eat the profits.