The cabin features hickory hard wood floors and wood ceilings and a stone fireplace.

Ceiling height too, a low ceiling height will not attract the better renters.

No bathroom or kitchenette, just a stem wall, subfloor, 10’ ceilings, mini split, drywall, electric, and a small deck out front.

Isn't there just as much chance that the policy-level fix for this might lead to rent control, rent ceilings, or other possibilities that might hurt private landlords and take away the free market forces? 

At the time, it was stuck in the 70's with wallpaper on every wall and to date, we have touched every surface of the house floor to ceiling in just under 7 months.  

Here's a qucik mockup of the garage more matching the house.That foundation, wow, what a mess.If it were mine I would have a structural engineer and maybe a soil engineer come out and give an opinion on it.It's sheer weight may have made it crack off like that, no rebar, etc...If it's was salvageable, maybe I would jackhammer away the broken parts and reset the walls on the good part. making the garage smaller.Disassembling and bracing one wall at a time and increasing the overhang of the roof.Then when done, gypsum board the entire thing inside and paint it ceiling white.If it were  my personal garage I would Pink Panther insulate it and use a space heater for winter comfort.It could be a nice little gym for renter who works out.Also, I would have an electrician verify the electrical is hooked up correctly for garage (because the concrete seems amateurish I suspect the electrical may be too).

It is stabilized with a bank, insurance company and nine 3br apartments fully leased; I just finished a 6,500sf open span building that I totally gutted and brought to vanilla box with new roof, rooftop HVAC units, new electric service coming to the building, commercial grade LVP over 8” concrete floors, fully ada compliant, all new windows, doors walls , 15’ ceiling… It’s vacant and I am targeting start-up technology companies; a 7-unit apartment building completely renovated and fully leased; 11-unit apartment building that I have not started yet; I rezoned a street from R1 to C3 (not trivial) where I assembled a 8 properties into a 120’x210’ lot where I will eventually build an apartment building; completed Phase I environmental study for entire project. 

Howell than the Professor.You could have taken the school payments as losses on bad luck decisions, or you could have bought a fabulous car like a brand new Rolls with a starlight ceiling (but now someone else has that money and bought that Rolls with the starlight ceiling--or some other thing they wanted).Just thinking outside the box. 

We spend money putting in gfci outlets, ceiling fans, towel bars, medicine cabinets, robe hooks, LED bulbs and other little amenities that make a house more livable. 

I’ve replaced several floors because of water leaks and I wouldn’t want to replace walls and ceilings because the water heater leaked.