But it’s uncertain how meticulously the IRS will examine my logs.

I am uncertain what the ARV would be.What would you do in my shoes?

We are working with a real estate agent but I am curious on others opinions as this situation is so unusual. 

I'll be more selective and avoid renting to those with emerging credit or uncertain financial situations.

It’s a fairly sophisticated operation, with an unusually long time lag between first identifying the unclaimed funds, tracking the beneficiaries, obtaining a contract from said beneficiaries, gathering all the documents needed for “proof”, dealing with numerous government agencies, and finally hopefully having your client receive the funds and you getting paid.

"Letter of intent" sounds like it'll have uncertain language in it.

Thats a steep price just to wait out an uncertain market.

Lots of old properties where I'm at, so it isn't unusual to expect $10k+ of capex out of the gate for water heaters, putting in central air possibly, and other old property issues.

It is unusual for them to return a surplus.

I recommend sitting down for an hour and learning how to develop a simple model in Excel yourself.When looking at properties you will often time have edge-cases where there are unusual sources of income and expense that might not fit in a calculator like this.