One tenant however, did refer to having their rent pro-rated by the number of days that the situation would last.There is a clause in both their leases that they are responsible to carry renters insurance to protect their personal belongings against fire, theft, flood, loss of use etc. 

If you drop your price $50, that's a loss of $600 a year, which is 50% less than you lose sitting vacant.

That could be a metric if they have or want to have losses to offset their other income; then it can work.

If so, maybe...But a brokerage account implies securities, which implies potential loss. 

Depending on how much money you're making (which, if you're at a loss, may not be a ton), those trusts can sometimes cause more tax than going the standard LLC route and just paying the $800 in the first place.I'm not sure from your post if you're talking about income taxes that are owed, or the $800 LLC fee, which is more akin to a franchise fee in the terminology that you're using. 

Turns out the investor who purchased b4 me and started work was in a situation took the loss and has other profitable ventures. what's your all-in price? 

Tax benefits can help make a better business deal, but a bad business deal is hardly ever going to break even just because of tax benefits.The other big consideration you should have, in order to actually benefit from real estate fueled losses or credits, it will require a substantial investment of time - either to get over the material participation thresholds for short term rentals, or to get over the real estate professional thresholds for mid term /  traditional rentals. 

I learnt my lesson to just cut my losses and move on and not sit and fight with such people.

With this strategy, you don’t need to qualify as REPS status to be able to take your real-estate losses.

Buy out the properties mortgages and sell it for a loss and try to minimize the total loss?