I have 2 options:- finance the construction pre-selling the apt, and take my profits (expected to be around 700K pre-tax); or- finance the construction with a 6-7%/year loan (collateral = my house), keep the 10 units, and once the building is completed in 24 months, rent them for circa 180K/ year gross.

PMs can minimize their suffering from unrealistic expectations by showing comparable properties that are on the market for rent and having a discussion with the landlord as to how their property compares and how his property can be more attractive to renters.Landlords are running a business. 

@Rafael Valdor some advice when screening PMCs-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend exploring as many sources as possible to get referrals AND cross-reference them to get as much accurate information as possible.Check out NARPM.com, BP’s Property Manager Finder (BiggerPockets: The Real Estate Investing Social Network), etc.Also, encourage you to learn from the mistakes of others - by reading posts here on BiggerPockets about owners not having their expectations met by their current Property Management Company.

The couches and other furnature are outside on the porch, trash piled up, broken floor tiles and unkept yard. 

In those instructions you specify that the EMD is to be returned to you regardless of whether the transaction goes through or is cancelled.This seems to be the opposite of the point of EMD... if the transaction is broken by the buyer, the seller can keep the EMD.  

I wouldn't consider it a heavy negative unless the street is super tight and parking is hard to come by or if the street is very steep/busy.The more desirable dense city neighborhoods it's almost kind of expected and off street parking would be considered a luxury rather than a necessity.If you get out into the suburbs I would say it's more of a big deal since more rentals have off street parking or a garage there.

Hi @Emily Gowen, whether you should sell comes down to what income (both cash flow and appreciation) you could realistically expect from the properties in the next X number of years vs. the amount of money you could make by selling now and either reinvesting or just sticking that cash in the S&P and collecting your 6-10% risk-free returns YoY.

Look for books published in the last 2 years as some of the books post 2010 seem to give people unrealistic expectations.

A few months go by and unbeknownst to me the escrow account had now drawn negative which triggers the lender to no longer apply what’s considered a “partial” payment to them, given that I’m now paying less that what’s due given the escrow increase required but not relayed to me even though I expected it at some point.Last month I’m on Zillow looking at the value of my properties.

A few of them also mentioned that they don't really expect this to affect the housing affordability in the county, but do believe that STRs can affect the quality and integrity of the neighborhoods in the county which they want to preserve.