Social security told me I was short 90 days of work credits to draw my benefits and denied me.

Please contact our Pro Member Concierge @Leah Deminski if you have any additional questions. 

The property is a 6-unit building in Los Angeles.Given the significant difference in current rents vs. market rates, I'm looking for advice on how to legally and ethically approach raising the rents to reflect market value, should I decide to move forward with the purchase.Some additional context: even if I were to negotiate a better (reasonable) price and were to successfully evict a tenant who is 5 months behind on their rent and charge the market rent for that unit I'd still be -$600/month. 

Also, your credit  matter to an extent as well as if the property will cashflow(some lenders use the market rent) or if there are already tenants in the property with signed lease contracts.

However, keep in mind that there may be additional fees associated with multi-family properties, so make sure to factor these into your budget.

I have credit already established and want to make it less complicated.

...I wouldn't.To make matters worse, the property isn't appreciating (because it's in a low appreciation market, or even a depreciating market), and the tenant pool is primarily made up of people with bad credit, low/no income, and a history of property damage at the previous places they've rented.

Have you spoken with a local credit union? 

If the water bill is $100 a month, increase the price by 20% (or whatever you decide is fair) to compensate you for the time required to split and bill and to cover additional use when tenants squander the utility.

If you decide to sell it before you are able to use the additional $2k loss then it would just be washed away.