I recently viewed a duplex in south Philly for a house hack, but am still waiting on the seller to produce a variance for the property since public records show it as a “1 unit” RSA5 SFR with O50 land use.

My nightmare is to end up at a point, most likely due to economic shift, where I cannot find a renter, can't sell the house, and I am stuck with a house payment (or several) and no income being produced on the property.

This property manager could not produce a 7 Day Notice after 3 weeks of repeated requests, a worker putting in a smoke alarm saw a sewage backup and didn't even tell me or his boss, checking info for a owner payout was not entered properly and resulted in a week delay, a renter was told of a payment plan for hardship but receved a contact info update in the mail... and lastly I had to email questions each day which never got answers.

There is no way this property will ever produce true positive cash flow if held long term.Tell him to sell now before th emarkets turn and he loses his equity.

You only have to look at the nearest mass produced sub division that is developed and built by a contractor to know exactly what I'm talking about. 3)  - Shop around and find a somewhat local architecture firm and start talking to them.

Trash assets produce staggering paper returns.

So until a tenant could produce scientific evidence of something otherworldly in their apartment, I would consider things business as usual. 

It does sound like your PM was scamming you, and likely other owners, to produce an extra income stream for themselves.

So an income producing property that returns 4% sounds pretty good to an institutional investor.

Stagnant economies that don't produce high paying jobs don't lead to increased real estate prices, so appreciation may be ruled out as well.