In practice, you may find that difficult unless you can bring most of the hustle and time to the project, and the distance may prevent that. 

There is nothing in your lease that prevents you from fixing the steps so get it done. 

They shut off my listings TWICE without notifying me, preventing people from applying.

Since you will own the entire building dissolving there's nothing to prevent you from dissolving the HOA.

While the CDC Order may prevent eviction of the holdover tenant over his or her objection, the tenant may be more motivated to voluntarily vacate the property due to their liability for double rent."

I believe it tends to give me a slightly lower return, because the sponsor is going to be more careful, and if there is a severe downturn will prevent me from taking catastrophic losses.

The Frank Dodd Act prevents Hard Money Lenders from lending to people, and requires they lend to businesses.Other than that, you should be able to find a hard money lender willing to lend to you at a reasonable rate.

The way I read the Raytown law, is that a house must be inspected and repaired before sold, and that would seem to prevent selling a fixer upper to an investor, but not sure that it is being enforced as it passed just before COVID started. 

What was done to prevent it or fix the issue?

When this happens it prevents other new businesses from being able to compete.