It could also be an opportunity to negotiate a better purchase price, considering the additional investment you might need to make.Hope this helps, and good luck with your decision!

A professional may often do a better job when it comes to hard decisions as it's just business to them.A DIY landlord though, may babysit their tenants a search high & low for the cheapest contractor and then pay them cash to get an even better price.- A PMC is not going to go to the extremes owners do as a PMC can only afford to spend X amount of time on problems for owners - or go out of business.

What information should I provide so a possible investor can make a quick decision on whether it would fit in their guardrails?

My point is that it comes down to a personal decision that is based on your own situation. 

Worse decision I have ever made. 

I want to make a smart decision and take advantage of the market conditions.

This decision can impact your time commitment and the overall profitability of your investment.Location: Focus on areas with strong rental demand, population growth, and good job markets.

Unfortunately a lot of the decisions that are being made by PM are just not the right ones (costs of repairs, what to repair vs replace etc) so it ends up being me jumping in to manage them.

While a deposit is almost always preferable, you should make a common sense business decision based on the circumstances and condition of the property, in my opinion.

Once we take over the property, we were thinking of signing a 3 month lease with an increase in rent (still not market rent) and after 3 months will increase to market rent and have them make a decision if they would be willing to stay or not.