There are also limitations of how much total loss from RE you can take against your W2 unless you are a RE Professional.

If they have the funds to evict and re-rent to good tenants, they have solved the problem.

Ask me in 2 months if that’s still the case-ha but currently loving every bit of it!

Ha!

Both of your invest strategies above I don’t consider as RE investment.  

And then if there's disagreements or new items to  re-negotiate, you lose most of the leverage if that person already has your money in their pocket. 

Looking at the same thing and while there was good discussion re: rent control, which can be found here -- http://www.ucnj.com/web_content/pdf/ordinances/Rent-Stabilization-Ordinance-2017.pdf, no one answered the original question re: condo conversion.

One idea he had, was to re-sale with cleared permits etc for a four plex. 

I'm new to RE and I'm interested in attending some quality meetups. 

Continuous participation.This is great if you are talking about an SMB with effectively connected Real Estate.Note rental activity is considered passive unless you meet the RE Pro threshold of 750 hours and more than 1/2 your time.This is the conundrum for passive real estate investors.If you have a full-time job or a large, time-consuming business it can be difficult or impossible to qualify.A huge loss from depreciation if you have one LP investment isn’t going to do anything for you.