I am currently in the bit of a rutt.

It’s just the nature of the beast.

Folks just need to understand things never stay the same..

As to the quandary posed by the OP: The root of the issue is that it basically sucks to be an RE investor these days.

Prorate the rent for the first month.   

I am sure there are a lot of moving parts behind the scenes that investors are doing. 

It wasn’t a massive deal—our expected assignment fee was $10,000—but when you’re growing a business, every opportunity matters.Everything seemed to be moving smoothly until the title search revealed a major roadblock: the mortgage discharge couldn’t be cleared because the person who needed to sign off was deceased.

I have a property I’m looking at in Missouri that’s about 1,400sqft, and not sure the difference between a Cash and a Novation offer. 

Also what does the city say is the assessed value of the property on your taxes (it will be different than the appraised value, but should give you an idea).

This not only relates to tenant's likelihood to fall behind on rent, but it also corresponds to how well they will treat your property.