If they were truly motivated sellers the house would already be sold - it is not a hard task to find someone to buy your real estate.Now some good news: When you do finally get to a deal - it will be a very good one!

Would it be an issue if I was self-performing a majority of the work myself?

How bad you get to screw someone has limits.To stay away from such issues, investors need to justify their actions, in valuations and in charges for services performed, justifying fair and equitable dealing.

I have been researching and growing my knowledge in various aspects of real estate for the past 8-10 months, but no cash to perform.

The handyman will argue he works to many tasks for the free rent and you likely will counter he doesn't do enough.

That should get the attention of someone high up to get some heads rolling.if it doesn't I would send another letter so the same higher up stating the actions you will take that will be billed back (plus any administrative surcharge) to the tenant for not performing per the lease.  

Push the money into federal municipalities, state municipalities, and paying off your most profitable property in my opinion.Federal and state municipality funds are tax free investments, and mine perform in the 8-9% range, which means tax effective 11-12% range, equal to that of a decent cap return for real estate, plus they usually pay monthly.on top of that, the last thing the states and feds wont pay is their water, power, and sewage bills, hence why its a good steady flow of income.Also, it gives you three sources of solid residual income.

. #4 mentioned by Brian, in any option contract there cannot be any requirement of the optionee to perform anything, it cannot be contingent on any type of performance.In this case, a commercial lease allowing sub-letting, the tenant may have maintenance responsibilities.

I think it's a good idea for every investor to get very familiar with what it takes to do the rehab tasks well.  

Did you perform landlord duties?