My rule of thumb when walking with contractors is if they talk more about themselves and past projects compared to what they will do on this project thats a hard no. 

Yeah, under any other circumstances, I'd suspect that, but I'm certain based on past communication that they are simply no longer responding.

For this case in particular, I think cash for keys or absolving them of past rent as soon as they hand me the keys would have worked better than going through a NY eviction.

I launched an STR this past June in Cleveland, Ohio.

we invest in defaulted debt and have looked at it in the past.

Welcome Anthony and good luck moving past an aspiration into investing!

I have offered to provide snappy traps for tenants in the past.

Didn't have a lot of free time, which my wife didn't like.Read copy & paste below to better understand Property Classes:------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

And I would say that that is how it has been for me over the past year with my Airbnb's in Costa Rica.  

I would have to agree with this - appraisals are no exemption to the general inflation/rising costs of the past few year s- $750 is hardly outrageous and investing in non-warrantable condos and with HOA restrictions is always going to have a risk for hiccups