One of the bathtubs had a bowling ball sized hole in the bottom (?

Like all other investors, we wish we had the crystal ball

But more importantly the bright line test appears to be the "intent' of the tax payer.If your intent was primarily to resell (most interpret that as a forced appreciation/value add/low ball purchase scenario where the desired equity is present at the time of purchase) then you are treating the property as inventory and 1031 is not appropriate.If your intent was to hold to use or to generate income from, or to take advantage of longer term appreciation then you are treating it as an investment and 1031 is appropriate. 

I would have liked to have the recent one with the pit bull try legal action as 1) they violated their lease 2) it was a pit bull 3) the other tenant has children that play daily in the common area things like soccer, kick ball etc.  4) The dog was not well behaved.   

I am wondering if I need to lower my asking price even more, but I don't believe he is super motivated and will accept a low ball offer.All the homes were built around 1950 and range from 850-1100 Sqft.

She does wince on low ball offers, and even today said, "they won't take that", but at the end of the day she drafted the offer I asked for.

So if you raise rents by $100/month on an 8-cap commercial building, you have now directly forced appreciation by (100*12)/.08 = $15,000, whereas on a residential, it depends a lot on what your neighbors last sold their properties for.Of course, nothing ever works out that precisely in the real world, as caps also fluctuate, but caps are not as volatile as comps.

I am currently stationed in Japan and this is precisely what I'm looking to do. 

Just 20 or so gets the ball rolling in my market anyway.

You will have to pay separate appraisals and lender fees for each ball park $2400 - $3200 depending on the lender.