The Mayor has stated that they are eating up the already limited housing options for poor & low-middle class citizens in the city.2.

Curious - what are the biggest things eating into your profit?

I can't decide if I want to pursue a lawsuit for them to turn water back on (and possibly lose) or if I want to eat the money for several months and hope there's water below me.

ITs going to depend on a lot of factors but just jumping into STR "around the country" (i.e. potentially very far from yourself) is going to be challenging - property management fees are going to eat up a lot and its hard to cash flow as it is with current rates/prices.Most people would start with LTRs as its generally good for the "first investment" to be more of a learning experience and chalking up a lot of mistakes - so keeping $ amounts low, leverage conservative and the investment as "vanilla" as possible is generally good advice

First, the inflation would eat my lunch. 

Maintenance, repairs and turnover eat up the slim cash flow and then some.

For starters, a purchase at the original contract purchase price could have resulted in a big fat loss.

If the property were built in 2015 I'd drop the numbers down because they probably won't eat up a lot of maintenance.  

I don't think I can get more than 1.1-1.2 for it- I'm trying to avoid agent commission fees that will eat up 50/60k of my profit, and thinking about the FSBO route.

As we all know business is about growing, but a lot of business die from eating too much than starving.