Decided to play it safe as it was my first deal and had to overcome the fear.

So understand that while you can get a good deal, you are accepting a lot of risk by 'playing the game'.Finally - know that just because an auction lists a price - that is seldom the price something will sell for.  

There are numerous factors at play and your real estate tax professional is best positioned to opine on that.

It might not hurt to consider playing long-ball with them for now. 

I have played with AirDNA and heard of Pricelabs, but how accurate are these sites with their estimates?

If you haven't tried this yet I'd recommend playing around with some of the BiggerPockets calculators here https://www.biggerpockets.com/investment-calculators If you have a pro account you can use the calculators as much as you'd like, if you have a free account you do get a few free uses of the calculators!

They likely also did not understand that ODC’s new business plan is still heavily dependent on significant rate cuts and rising rents; two things I believe are unlikely to occur. seems to me the play right now is to join in on the syndication that are raising this pref equity and jumping in front of the original investors.. maybe for you its like a stock market straddle play invest in the pref equity fund to offset your loss's you may incur in the original offering ( if in fact there will be any)..

The other is to buy the property from them which the title company will need to get current title holder to sign off on deed once they are paid off exactly buy the debt foreclosure out the derelict owner.. thats the play.. 

Both teams provided outstanding service and played a crucial role in the success of this investment.

I'm not sure why they think they are special and get to play by different rules.