They have no incentive to leave your properties sitting vacant, but it's not uncommon for real estate investors to have properties under renovation or "offline" for whatever reason for several months, and the PM doesn't make any money if there is no rent coming in.

I'm not sure my realtor knows quite how to structure this since it's uncommon. 

Of course, that appreciation play is speculative in nature but it's not uncommon to see segments of the market appreciate 25-35% YoY for the past 2 years.If you step outside of the specific RTP "bubble" and look broadly across Raleigh and Durham, there is definitely cash flow to be had in some of the lower-priced parts of these 2 cities.

You are actually the first landlord I have heard suggest a decrease in rent after the first year, which tells me this is very uncommon.

Not uncommon for a PMC to entice an owner into signing with them with apparent low or no fees – only to charge owners for fees not mentioned in the contract and try to pass them off as “normal industry fees.”

It would not be uncommon for building-related pass-through expenses to be on a building by building bases (so excluding the building in disrepair), but for property-wide expenses to include all leasable (if the second building is not leasable, this is gray, so agree with tenant as you see fit). 

This scenario isn’t that uncommon currently.

It's not uncommon to get 7-10% annually from cashflow as a passive investor, and additional returns after the sale/refi.

In some instances, a lender which manually underwrites to Fannie/Freddie may consider 12+ months of secondary job income however this is uncommon and you may need to approach a very small credit union for this type of product. 

So it isn't uncommon for a commercial loan lender to not be able to lock in a rate.