We often do modifications for tenants, whether they have a qualified disability or not, such as putting in chair height toilets for tenants who are elderly or modifying a sidewalk to make it easier to traverse.Be careful during the screening process not to say the wrong thing or to say something that can have a chilling effect.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE (efficient market) JOKE:An optometrist and an economist are walking down the street.The optometrist sees a $100 bill on the sidewalk and yells, "My lucky day!

Like Ned, I can't really answer most of your questions, unfortunately...That said, I'm in the process of doing my first new construction project on a piece of land where I demolished the existing house (so I'm not dealing with issues like zoning, subdividing, platting, utilities, sidewalks, roads, etc).

There is defiantly water coming in near the floor/wall.There are a couple things I am going to take care of like a sloping sidewalk and gutters cleaned.

You still end up having to repair any sidewalk damage.

With respect to utilities, each unit has it's own heating, tenants pay for their own gas / electrical and landlord pays for water and trash.I can see from Google / Bing that there have been street level improvements locally in the past 2-4 years (great resource looking at older and current images) in terms of sidewalks, street paving, etc.

I asked the plumber I was speaking to to give me a very ballpark idea of how much it would cost to replace the whole line (from the sidewalk to the house, about 30ft or so), and he said $2-3k.

Spray down the driveway, sidewalks and garden beds before taking the photos - it brings out the colors.

Is the street and sidewalk covered in litter?

They want to take out loans for upgrading the pool house, make questionable decisions regarding repairs, like paying someone thousands to remove one downed tree after a storm when it likely could have been roped off and removed the next week for hundreds instead, but left a huge hole in the ground right by the sidewalk for weeks, even after being reported, that could have easily led to a huge lawsuit, and they tend to have pet projects they want done that don't make sense for a condo that needs to concentrate on building reserves, and they raise fees each year I've been there.