From what I could tell a lot of investors lost jobs, so ate their rental income rather using it to pay mortgages and taxes.

My property manager either approved the tenant to use those rents for other months without telling me OR she had set up her system in such a way that the non-payment of rent ate into the pre-paid rents when no actual rent was coming in.  

Here are my suggestions in no particular order (mainly biographies/memories, business-related,  or histories)The Fish that Ate the WhaleShoe DogNever Split the DifferenceTitanThe Success PrinciplesThe Boys in the BoatE-Myth: Real Estate InvestorMillionaire Real Estate InvestorWhen Breathe Becomes AirThe Immortal Life of Henietta LacksAlso recommend anything written by Erik Lawson (Devil in the White City, Dead Wake, In the Garden of Beasts, Isaac's Storm)Let me know if you liked any of these!

The full scope of rehab was not completed as we hit snags that ate into our rehab budget.

Coons ate my trash that's a good one. ?

Probably similar to the scam when I was selling my dad’s truck for him on Craigslist....they want to send a full price cashier’s check, have their “transport guy” pick up the vehicle, and title.....when the cashiers check turns out be fake, they already have the truck and title.If you sign a rental agreement for 2-3 months, they now have a tenant relationship, and you’d have to go through the eviction process, even though their cashier check was fake....they’d just ate your unit for themselves while you went through the process.

The city engineer probably wants a site plan to determine no encroachment and not on an easement of any kind, I'm very surprised they ate telling you you don't need a permit for a concrete retaining wall, usually under 30" you don't need an engineered wall, but still require permits and an updated survey.

You also need to do an inspection - I had a couple of board horses on my farm and they destroyed my stalls (ate the boards and tore up fences).  

So I bumped the asking price down to the cap rate of that area 7.8% and got a price of $301,538 and made an offer at $300,000.That puts my new price of $300,000, expenses ate 50% ($24,000), vacancies ($5,280), and mortgage ($18,649).

Holding costs (taxes) would have ate into the profit also.