I spoke to 3 lenders today and all insist on me using my own name and transferring after closing which is yet additional fees.

Which is close to round enough, in turn, that it makes me think the lender just documented $10m/yr and stopped documenting additional income at that point because it would serve no purpose. 

I would also add, it's possible you could end up repainting with Kilz which will "seal in" the cause of the smell functionally eliminating it. 

Literally everything to learn about real estate, deal-wise, all comes down to simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

A lot of people give up at that stage but if you track down the owners, you may be the first person to approach them because it takes additional work.

I've seen folks purchase properties, that have tenants signed on for a year or so, but their immediate expectation was to evict/break a signed lease of one unit, so they could live in one, while the other offsets and provides the additional cash flow one would expect.

Yes, right now I have option between 1031 and primary exclusion.

I have exclusively fix and flipped properties and I'm considering changing my strategy.

I have found that education and mindset was first for me in addition to your step 1.  

Hopefully you get a response and set up a sting with the police.In addition, so long as the occupants (who I hope are victims and not the perpetrators) are not up on all their RE info, you can tell them that they were duped and as sad as it is, they needed to perform their due diligence and confirm that the PM or the phony owner who scammed them were on title or not.