Your cash on cash return is much higher with a house hack and paying a less than you rent. 

If you do decide to help them out and rent continues to be late simply have a talk wiht them and remind them that rent helps pay your bills and since you did them a solid ask for the same in return.  

I looked at my return for you, hope this helps but check with your own CPA.- Unrecaptured falls under section 1250 and is treated as ordinary gains and capped at 25%- My capital gain from appreciation and improvements under section 1231 was treated as a long term capital gain since I owned both assets over a year.Hope this helps.

In general I have unfortunately never gotten much return on any social media marketing. 

This might not reduce your taxes, but it's a better use/return for your money than paying down a 4% or 5% mortgage. 

Given the expected appreciation, what is your expected total return if you hold it over the next 5 years.Can you cover the large negative cash flow, turnover costs and maintenance from other sources?

Note I strive to minimize cash flow because it gets taxed versus other RE return are easy to defer or avoid the taxes.  

The longer the development cycle, the more risk on the LPs, the higher the return.

I see investors all over the country making 30%+ cash-on-cash return, BUT there are also people throwing money out of the window.

Investment: $200K; ROI: 26.29%/year; 10-year equity: $1.1M; Total cash return: $1.2M. 10-year equity multiple: 8x on $200K investment.