., the core of the issue is you are not responsible for illegal behaviour of others - your tenants in this case - unless you knowingly condone or enable those illegal activities.

This will enable you to compare market rent and property value vs. what the turnkey is stating.Get copies of their management and leasing agreement and read them.

It enables them to stay in the game while maintaining their sanity and doing other things.

hmm, counter intuitive to me.A Refi may extract some equity, but will increase your debt on the property and usually increases the mortgage payments. 

He/she should ask you to lay out your short- and long-term goals so he/she can help you construct a plan that will enable you to reach your short-term goals and reap results that will provide resources necessary to pursue and achieve your long-term goals.  

I also enjoy the negotiations to extract as much value for the client as possible.

I'm looking for long-term wealth accumulation and for the near-term tax benefits.I'm hoping that I can extract some good information from everyone here and hopefully contribute some of the same at some point.

However, he wants to keep the whole $500k so we have to get our hands dirty to extract the equity.

We all desire to be in the real estate space so we should all learn the rules before we dive in over our heads or say the wrong things on the first or even the last conversation.Lets work together to make the market that feeds us appreciate us rather than enable them to think we're here taking a property from the neighbors grandparents or great grandparents. 

Under no circumstances should you apologize , that's enabling behavior which facilitates their continued disfunction.I'm going to say Berkeley rivals SF and Portland in the professionally offended dept.