I guess I'm the yin to your yang: I don't think most people should jump in to REI unless they already have a robust stock portfolio providing substantial dividends and/or vast cash reserves so they can afford to dig themselves out when a sewage line clogs, a deranged tenant trashes a unit and has to be evicted, they miscalculate the ARV by more than their profit margin because they forgot to double their back of the napkin rehab budget, tariffs cause the price of lumber to double during permitting, or something expensive and unexpected inevitably goes wrong.

Does the condo association have enough reserves to prevent future jumps in fees?

We put pad locks on our gates to prevent them from coming back in without us being there.Finally his friend contacted us about signing a lease.

Our priorities are 1- fixes for safety or to prevent further damage; 2- fixes that improve the rental income or will draw great tenants (we're turning the studio to a 1Br to increase rent), and 3-things my wife wants for customization/aesthetics (happy wife, happy life).Some specific questions I had so far are:1) We have a modified bitumen roof. 

This seems common sense but it prevents bad landlords from purposefully leaving it empty for the entirety of the lease and claiming the old tenant owes the entire lease amount.

It's preventing you from buying a deal you shouldn't.You can settle for a bad deal, look in another market where houses are cheaper, or be patient.

Is there a lien I can put on the property to prevent sale until deposit is paid?

This makes it a little easier to prevent the bank from noticing thus enforcing the due on sale clause

Why people want to prevent economic progress is more than I can understand.

Or additional lattice that may block out more of the cemetery but local restrictions may prevent such things being built too high.Such an external obsolescence will affect the ARV of the property so it must be budgeted for.