(Reason why I let him stay at the mortgage rent price was cause he fixed all issues that came back after the inspection, around $6k in expenses & sold me it at the price we first agreed on)

The only thing for you to do here is apologize for the harm that you've caused and set up a payment plan or whatever you can do to make it right and pay them back. 

What's causing this decline in closing times?

'HERE IS WHERE THE PROBLEM COMES IN'  The actual problem comes in that you have no idea who caused it or when. 

He has to hire out causing price fluctuations.

We don’t know any PMCs to recommend in the area mentioned, but since selecting the wrong PMC is usually more harmful than selecting a bad tenant, you might want to read our series about “How to Screen a PMC Better than a Tenant”:https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/3094/91877-how-to-screen-a-pmc-better-than-a-tenant-part-1-services-and-processesWe recommend you get management contracts from several PMCs and compare the services they cover and, more importantly, what they each DO NOT cover.

@Ryuji MoriWhat is your overall take on the trajectory of rental laws in NYS (possible good cause eviction law statewide)?

@Troy Forney - I feel like you might see some similarities but not being caused by the same issues. 

However, if you close with knowledge that it was not being delivered vacant, that could harm this argument.Or, are these squatters who moved in later?

Our town is a small town and a new company has came in to mine cobalt which will bring several hundred more jobs to our area and that will cause more people to move here as the cost of living is very low in our area.