I told them I felt those jobs were awfully tentative and Mother-in-law/neighbor "MIL" lady insisted that the jobs were a "career" that the DIL had been working at in her former location.  

Value = NOI/CAP.If possible, base your numbers/offer on the T12/T24/T36 (the actual trailing 12/24/26 month financial statements) rather than any estimate or projected pro-forma they provide you - be insistent that they provide you with the T12/24/36 so that you can run numbers yourself.

If they insist there's more mold, so be it.

My bank insisted that I not mix funds for legal reasons.

If they insist on sending individual rent payments, we charge an administrative fee to cover the extra bookkeeping effort and bank charges.

I mentioned I have to do some repairs on the property and he's insisting I need to purchase a builder's risk policy. 

The seller insisted that I use his attorney as the escrow agent, which I typically don’t do, but the deal was relatively cut and dry so I was agreeable after drafting favorable escrow language.

For example, I had a situation where I wanted to counter at a low price and my agent insisted that they would not accept the offer and we would be out of discussions.

However many investors insist on using cap rate as a performance metric (i.e. measure of income/return).

I certainly can't speak for all banks, but if you insist on going small loan commercial you're likely to find the best bet at the smallest banks you can find. maybe a credit union.