That being said, if the building featured a mix of 2bed, and 1 bed units, I would be tempted to pull the trigger if you could get the rents up fairly soon, especially because of the price of units in MA.

You can throw all the money you want at legal fees, that doesn't make you right, it just means you were able to strong arm someone into compliance via a business decision.

Perfect, I got the FHA loan already, when I'm ready to pull the trigger for my next deal I will definitely keep this in mind.Thank you @brian Garlington

I am pulling the trigger on a much larger complex, though, and the depreciation expense is substantial.

Your rental criteria should be what the standard is kept to.Either they have a Soc Sec Number and qualify or they don't and don't qualify.You want to rent to someone that's not in compliance,, then that's up to you.Don't make things harder for yourself than what they should be.No experience renting to undocumented,, but lots in denying because of invalid Soc Sec #.. or none at all.

Finally pulled the trigger on our first duplex and we are excited about that.  

Were the police calls noise related.. get time and date of calls.Give her written notice of Non-compliance, Noise violation, High Traffic (unauthorized people at all times of day/nite), prostitution (more than likely).. and dont forget the trash.I'd do a letter of mutual lease termination with the notice on non-compliance, and say if she agrees to vacate, in writing within 5 days,, that's by Sunday at 5 PM you will not file eviction action on Monday at 9AM.

Honestly how do landlords get themselves so stuck.. inherited problems or not.. this sounds like it would have been the first thing I would have done was to get rid of the dogs.Tell tenant you have no choice they either get dogs gone or else, you file for eviction,  non-compliance failure to permit management / services to enter apartment to do emergency repairs. 

@James Edwards, will a sale trigger a new assessment in your town?

Based on my 5min searching on apartments.com in Lynhurst, I noticed more than half of the SFH listed had AC so I would definitely pull the trigger.