@Dina Harleth I am going to assume that your PM is also a licensed Realtor and is using the California Association of Realtors standard contract, if this is the case they will almost certainly not be willing to change it partially because it is against the California Association of Realtors terms of service and could also affect the contract as a whole. 

Finally, I wouldn't offer any money for anything unless someone else suggested that if you were a nice guy and ponied a bit of cash into the kitty that the whole thing would go away.

The whole point of a down payment is that you have serious skin in the game and won’t walk away if things don’t go smoothly.  

I emphasize free because you'll never get through the body of free knowledge out there in 10 years. 

My dad has been in the construction business basically his whole life and before I was born he was an apartment manager.

Seller agent is talking to bank to see if they will take less (like a short sale except not going through the whole foreclosure process).

I haven't put a lot of thought into it, but I can't see a huge swing one way or another in anything like oil that impact the whole market.This posttalks about inflation. 

More units do lower your risk and will help you achieve economies of scale sooner.

I am hoping to at least get some money to repair the roof, although I probably do need a whole new roof. 

I'm not a whole saler myself but I deal with a couple of them and the biggest issue I always run into is they either don't know the neighborhood, arv, or the cost of estimating rehabs.