I have talked to others that says I can do zone with dampers no problem while I have talked to others and read online that doing this will be a maintenance nightmare and that I really am better off eating the cost and doing a split system.Has anyone else had a similar situation and re engineered hvac from split system to one larger system?  

That certainly could be cured by year end and we would expect the return to stabilize similar to the previous year as the variables shouldn't eat away more than they did prior year within a deviation or so.  

We are in our early 60s now, and would like to avoid having to eat cat food when we are 80+. 

In my case,  I have a 2/1 (living room, eat in kitchen, 2 beds and 1 bath) and is smaller, ( 800sf).

Before the 1950s, eating out was something only the rich did.

Just don't go into this thinking that it will not eat up some of your family time.I have found that there are deals out there, but there are 20 other investors bidding on the same deal. 

I'm just wondering because a traditional PM can eat into profits a lot.

EAT the $3000 and lesson learned for you!

No repairs eating up your cash flow.

Just be aware that when dealing with condos, a lot of time the HOA is an extra variable that you need to pay extra scrutiny to as a few bumps in the fee can quickly eat away at your cash-flow.