I personally use 15% for maintenance and 10% for vacancy and try to hit my desired numbers.

If the desire is to retain these tenants with a longer term lease, need to develop the lease and have it Signed by both parties. 

Instead of cash flowing at about 12%, like they expected, they are at 8% or worse and the area could take years to come around as far as appreciation and rent rates to generate their desired returns.

This way you have a sliding scale that can account for discrepancies relating to property condition i.e. quality and desirability of each property.

this sounds like a credit issue that needs resolved before you can do a re-fi...you need to bring your score back up...not entirely sure about the circumstances, but if your desired re-fi is based on personal credit, you will need to repair your credit.

Climate desirable. 

People are not going to pay 1% in desirable and economically stable areas because for that 1% they can buy almost 2x the house vs renting.

Both sound highly desirable for CRE investors.

This is leading to a saturation of older less desirable apartment buildings which are fetching lower than market rates.Right now Kingston seems to be a solid market as it also has one of the lowest average discount percentages compared to other close by markets.  

The report, or lack thereof, leaves a lot to be desired.