The title company did not see that the money was being held in the treasurers office account ( they haven't applied it towards the current tax year yet ), so it was not reflected on the closing documents.  

This way you exactly know where you stand with rent, and can adjust your numbers to reflect it.

My understanding is even though the purchase contract bears my personal name, the title company can draft paperwork that will allow the deal to be closed in the LLC given I will be reflected as a partner in that LLC.

The second and most important reasons is that when hiring a vendor to enter a rental property you need the best of the best because this is one of your highest points of liability whether you manage the property yourself or not.A vendor reflect you and if they do not do good work, are not reliable or are hoping to cut corners it can have an impact on not only your final result, but also impact resident retention.I would find out why their is a significant price difference and then assess from there.

As @Todd Dexheimer and others have mentioned, the bigger you look the easier it will be to get financing and the terms will start to reflect like 4-unit type terms. 

Rush assignments will command a higher fee and more experienced appraisers will often reflect higher fees than newly licensed appraisers.No to the specifics, residential multi family properties (2 to 4 units) have a higher appraisal fee than single family homes. 

There are some areas on the East side that are great, there are also pockets with high crime and it reflects in the numbers you are mentioning. 

The auditors would have reflected that it was sold and you could have deleted it from the list.

Technically, you would need two years of filed tax returns reflecting that income so they could calculate the income.  

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