I can guarantee a few things:1) If you wire the money, he will either ask for more or you will never hear from him again.2) If you insist you will only wire to a neutral party such as title, escrow, or a closing attorney – whatever is customary in your area, and how all legitimate loans close – you will never hear from this individual again.3) No matter what you do, you will never receive a dime from this scammer.I know you have a lot of time invested here, Chris, and 100 emails, but you really have to get over it and be glad it didn’t cost you anything.

They should be a neutral platform or tool, yet they seem to inject themselves into property rights a little too much for my tastes.

Personally, I would say that if you can get it at least cash flow neutral then I would hold on to it and take the appreication. 

I find out they negotiated between themselves and the owner only intended for them to paint one room with neutral colors.

I'm looking for some consultation from a neutral third party around total building costs.

However, I do think you could make it cash flow positive or neutral with the right investment. 

Depending on your market, you want it to be cash flow positive or at the very least, cash flow neutral (including reserves for maintenance/repairs, capex, and vacancies). 

Without knowing much about your local area, the exterior condition and MEP systems in the house I'll make the following suggestions so take with a grain of salt ;) First, I'd wash those walls and repaint most of the rooms a clean white or something neutral.

In a buyers or neutral market most sellers post at least 15% higher than they expect to get, so you can adjust & reach out even if the list price is too high, in a hot market all bets are off unfortunately.

Will you get to neutral or positive cash flow in just a few years?