My thought is there are cultural influences at play here

At the end of the year, it is super easy to reconcile expenses and to be able to do an easy audit for performance purposes.  

I've had the goal to do it in 6-7 months and been beating myself up for poor performance as the GC... feeling much better now!

Since you can 1031 from any type of property anywhere in the US (if you're selling in the US) the 1031 will be performed the exact same.  

Buy and hold notes (performing and non performing)3.

If that does not organically happen fast enough, I would give a couple of residents at a time the option to (1) stay in their current unit at renovated rent levels and perform renovations that can be done in an occupied unit (2) move into a renovated unit at renovated rent levels or (3) move out.

I would give written notice to the tenant of the violation, and then perform a property inspection in 30 days to see if you still see evidence of the violation.

Tenant’s failure to maintain any item for which Tenant is responsible shall give Landlord the right to hire someone to perform such maintenance and charge Tenant to cover the cost of such maintenancePremises defined in the lease as follows:  Landlord rents to Tenant and Tenant rents from Landlord, the real property and improvements described as: address of the rental property (“Premises”).1.

If you have a BAD tenant experience on this property as a rental and lose several months of rent and incur substantial tenant damage that is all coming out of pocket whereas if you had even a handful of rentals the performing rentals and the monies budgeted for capex/maintenance/vacancy will carry that sort of loss.

It is crucial that you pull accurate comps and have a reliable GC prior to performing this type of investing.