You know what you are going to spend and there shouldn't be any way that they can convince you to spend more than you should.

Best $40-$50 bucks you can spend. 3d party reports give you leverage.

If you do this, you can end up spending many many many more hours babysitting a property than the extra cash is worth.

They did not want to spend the money to foreclose, I am guessing.

Honeywell makes the best thermostats in my opinion and I believe somewhere around their 5000 series and up that feature is availible, but I like where your mind is at and it sounds like a viable option to me if you don't want to spend the money on the heat pump.

They'll pull their rigs to nice area and spend month or two.

My non-professional understanding of basis:Your basis is the purchase price, including acquisition costs (except any that may be deductible as expenses in the current year) plus the amount you spend on the property to put it into rent ready condition.

So why spend your money on this?

Yup, lots of stuff...What about capital costs (depending on the area and property, you'll likely spend at least $20,000 every 20 years to replace roofs, HVAC units, water heaters, etc)?

Do you want to spend the $$$$ on an evicition, vacancy, lost rent, debt service, and repairs to make a point and risk getting a trashed unit returned to you?