I simply said they were overpaid.

It was my father's investment and I was just attempting to please my father's request.

Simply tell him he can: do it himself as per the rent or hire someone at his expense or have it included in the higher rent...or he can move once his lease is up.If it is weeds, then he should be pulling those so they don't grow. 

Nobody really knows how low they'll go but I agree with predictions of 20-25%...and I wonder what Agents are doing to make up that delta in their revenue.We diversified well in advance knowing we needed to create additional streams of income, ideally by simply focusing on what we control, the size of our roster, and more effectively monetizing all of our current transactions. 

You simply pay Google on a per-click basis. 

Or "simply cost of doing business", they keep repeating - (an unprofitable business, it seems to me, but maybe I am just inexperienced?).

Posting notice that you are attempting to contact them (or at least sending certified mail) will at least show that you are making an effort if the tenant would later take you to court over unfulfilled repairs. 

After completing the repairs, I expect that 75-80% of the renewed property value will be close to my purchase price, and my goal is simply to recoup the down payment.

Instead of dropping their fees and losing money on the loans, lenders simply won't issue loans at those low prices 

He was never even a good salesperson (pushy sales tactics are often taught by gurus but simply don't work for most personalities, Jordan Belfort of all people called him out on this during an interview that was very revealing), and his real estate syndication funds are now rumored to be total scams (he allegedly buys the properties separately beforehand then marks them up millions before selling them to his fund using his investor's money, like a wholesaler basically but taking $50M fees from investors without disclosing it.