By accelerating your depreciation schedules, you reduce your taxable income which in turn increases your operating cash flow.

When the problem persisted with my cold callers not generating many leads, I requested to downgrade my subscription to remove the cold calling service and keep the acquisition manager only which would be at a reduced cost.

This would reduce your monthly living expenses and allow you to build equity.

You can ask seller to pay closing costs to help reduce costs. 

Sooooo I reduced rent by 1/2 for May-Aug (which equals to 2 months of free rent).

You also benefit from warranties that can reduce initial maintenance costs.

In this case a good system should help you reduce the risk of bringing in costly tenants.

I would benefit from the decreased cost of living (effectively paying reduced or ~hopefully~ no rent), but also would take a greater role in managing the property seeing as I'd be physically living there.

With reduced margins and a longer time to get the payback from selling there is an increased risk to the flippers not to mention the high taxes they pay.

Yes, there will be expenses, but they are paid for by your rent income, which really means you are reducing the amount of income.