It's a very stressful situation for our team to keep having to contact you guys every month about our money.

You don't have to be a contractor but it will save you a good chunk of money. 

I agree with you that I would not want to tie up all that money in home equity when it can be working for you to make more money.

Should I spend money on professional photos?

And yes, attorneys make money from forming LLCs, but they make way more when you were negligent and didn’t know what you didn’t know and end up in a lawsuit.

I'd ideally like to do this process and not cost much money, but having a good roommate does matter to me.

Yes, I have investors actively buying STRS on O'ahu at this time and they are planning to make money off of these investments.  2.  

If I donated to aids health foundation and they spent the money on rent control instead of aids research or health care, I would be pissed.  

That data would be sales price after remodel (the true numbers some agents really don't have the experience to be comping the property), the days on market you will experience (this is great info because you want to recycle the money quickly), and resources to sell the place fast not slowly which you do not want this because this could put your holding costs extremely high and push the property to little profit or no profit. 

I agree with the person who said they are likely short of money and grasping at straws.