My only $0.02 (aside from improving your tenant screening process, perhaps hiring a professional property manager to decrease potential headaches, etc.) is to NEVER ACCEPT PARTIAL RENT. 

Basically you need to increase the NOI by increasing revenue or decreasing expenses.

Its hard to quantify, because you could be losing more money in decreasing demand by disincentivizing agents to show your property.  

Dilemma~ If lenders designate 1 to 4 units as residential and residential properties mainly gain value according to comps and capital improvements, should i not focus on raising rents and decreasing expenses and focus on capital improvements i.e. painting, roofing etc?

Maybe the appraisal will go up would be the upside and decreased needs of tenants. 2.

@J Warrens I did try the seller finance option, I actually really wanted it for this opportunity to try and decrease out of pocket expenses.  

But I want to decrease time spent doing this if I can jump into commercial 5+ units.

Find ways to increase NOI and decrease expenses.

Or did they go the other way and run a ton of extra expenses through the property to lower their NOI to decrease the taxable income?

Additionally, I purchased primarily on adding long term value to the house and knowing its value is very unlikely to decrease.