Put this in a spreadsheet to make it easier to take the emotion out of any decision.

Emotionally it is more difficult than just getting quoted double and going 15% over budget...

Many people have watched their neighborhoods change throughout their lives here and it can be emotional to have to part ways with a family home or investment property that unfortunately fell into disrepair.That being said, and this goes for Philly and anywhere else in the US, at the end of the day distressed sellers want to sell their property.

IMHO you can try also to rise up engagement by adding more "motion & emotion" to your posts, like captivating video content, 3D demo-views or engaging stories with animated pictures (kinda storyboards or slideshow). + don't omit CTA ("subscribe", "repost" etc) with clickable "phone" (both in a posts and at the web-site), triggering links and buttons .

While it is not all that difficult, it does require a certain mental and emotional stability.

He also has emotional attachment to the house and would potentially want to continue renting the front unit. 

Let's be honest, shoving my emotions down and "just dealing with them" is probably a big cause of my problem.  

I will warn you though if it’s your house that you’re putting up you’re going to be emotionally attached to it and that will make this process worse.

Every time you quitclaim back and forth it weakens your title chain and your insurances.  

But what we learned from that event was that equity doesn't necessarily dictate outcome when modifying notes because of what's often referred to as "emotional equity" (i.e. people often want to stay in their home because of an emotional attachment to the home).