If the landlord would otherwise be having multiple contracts with multiple parties, you could offer to be "master tenant" and give one rent check to the landlord while you sublease and collect rent from your sublets.

It could also be that at this time sellers are even more motivated as no one knows how the market will behave and then agree to a lower price than originally desired.

I believe that Sun Prairie may also work and could be have a good rental market for families once you move out of the house hack and want to rent the entire unit out to a family as opposed to renting out each individual room.

If her history is any indication of future performance (it usually is) you are just finding out the problems you will be having to deal with ahead of time. 

Make sure your numbers on the cash flow are reality and get the seller to provide hard copy maintenance and remodeling as well as late/no pays. and not just for this year, going back at least 3 years. 43 units is huge if its not behaving itself!

You also might be have to pay for advertising depending on how you look to generate leads.Also, brokers make their money off the backs of agents, e.g. you are only getting a cut of the commission you make (all deals are broker to broker). 

There is no reason that you should be having to deal with that before the deal has even happened.

The kicker will be having a strong Operating Agreement which would be best prepared by an attorney to suit your particular needs.

You need to standardize/templatize the estimating process and put together a list of all of your typical repair items and the prices you receive from your contractors.You can populate your pricing information in a spreadsheet/software and when you have a new deal come through your pipeline you will be have a standardized process for estimating the costs.I can generally create a very detailed estimate for a property in less than 15 minutes with my templates.Remember, "Estimating" isn't "exactimating", your numbers don't have to be perfect. 

Your agent should be having a verbal conversation with the sellers agent prior to submitting a lowball offer.