She did the remodel and put in a deep kitchen sink and a disposer, and the disposer outlet is too high in relation to the drain's wall connection, so the disposer is always half filled with water. 

A seller who lists a property with a realtor isn't that pressed for time on selling the property, so trying to get a price discount by claiming to be saving them time probably will not work.

A previous tenant, I actually gave them a rental discount of $25 if they paid early...even if it was just by one day. 

I believe that you have a couple of choices.1) If you can get the property under contract at a discounted rate, you could wholesale it to another investor for a fee.2) You could talk with the vendor and see it they are willing to do a seller finance with a smaller down payment, using whatever you have left over to try and repair. or even talk with the vendor and see if they want to partner with you.3) find some one you trust who has what you are missing and partner up.4) pass this by, knowing that you will find another deal, and gear yourself up (fix credit/no money issues) with the goal to fix and flipsome basic ideas. you can search the site for more forums on what you need.Good luck!

If you can purchase the home at a real big discount vs market price then it might be feasible.  

But considering she has a lot going on and what she asked is a fair market appraisal price I did not see the need to ask for discount.

I also believe that you can just have one of your tenants handle those onsite duties for a small discount on the rents. 

We're looking for an investor-friendly real estate agent to help negotiate discounted and bank own property around Anne Arundel and Howard counties.

My best advice to you is to not discount or ignore the lessons you can learn from the path your father took. 

To make sense for the lender.What you have is a distinct advantage over your competition IE your cost of funds is such that if you needed to discount you will probably make money the hard money borrower may not make a dime because of his cost of capital ate him up...