Hoping to have it be reasonably priced hourly work.  

Solve their problem and buy at a reasonable price!

A single family home in a B neighborhood for 100-150k price range is probably more reasonable.

I believe the tenate as explanations seems indicates the moving reason is just piped up and the decision was made just within a couple of days. 

If an applicant gets denied because you think they're dirty or for any reason, and they do qualify for all your criteria, then how do you deny them?

Is there a reason behind this?

She does not want to negotiate a buy out with the tenant, and she is willing to take a pretty substantial discount to sell the property with the tenants (about $50k).After reviewing the ordinance, one of the permissible reasons for evicting is if the owner intends to occupy the property personally, or with a family member or resident manager.

The two big reasons that multifamily makes more sense than single family are scale and reduced expenses.

For instance I know they are a calibration tool for estimating the value of a property or lease, but do people use them for other reasons?

Where it can become really tricky is that I have heard of one instance where the delinquent owners didn't file the exemption then after the sale and 6 month period were able to claim some reason as to why they weren't able to file the exemption and were able to get their property back after improvements were made.The court does require that anyone redeeming a property pay 25% interest on the purchase price plus expenses to maintain and secure the property (not upgrades).