Off market and the new the owner used an agent so I reached out to the agent and made an offer How did you finance this deal?

Last but not lease, start writing offers and don't get stuck in analysis paralysis. 

What are you offering?

We stay in contact with this agent and I guess she made a couple of verbal offers for us after the agreement had expired. 

I'm having to offer this as a fully furnished house to be able to charge a premium on rent just to get close to the mortgage.

I've been apart of transactions where the deal was structured by offering the seller a percentage of the difference between the original purchase price and the new value at refi.

For example, State Farm typically requires the latest inspection report for underwriting on multi-family properties that are over 30 years old.

I don’t know what’s going on of course, but I can offer the possibility that the seller tried to negotiate the bill down and the contractor realized he was being squeezed so he took action.  

@Andrae S Wiggins recommend you upgrade your BP membership to Pro to access the BP Calculators to evaluate rental purchases.Play with the numbers to figure out the purchase price that gives you your target ROI.That's the number you'll need to make an offer at, NOT what the seller is asking.Yes, you will get a lot of rejects, but whoever said investing was easy?

Landlord/ tenant laws are also typically made on the municipal level more-so than the state level with some exceptions like the statewide rent control ban that we have in Colorado...Sorry I just don't see how it can be useful to look at real estate from a state level and pretend that electoral college votes have much if anything to do with appreciation.