Clean up exterior of property and improve landscaping.Refinish common area.

Also, seller financing and carry back is very common in my experience if you ask.

After you have checked off the most important criteria which most of the major providers have in common, however, price is a significant factor.

The student loan interest is in fact tax deductible, so yes I've decided it doesn't make any sense to try and pay those back early.

If the deal makes sense, exit strategy in order, go for it and keep on plugging away.  

I feel really upset by the time and energy we wasted with both properties, but I wanted to ask how common this is for sellers and agents to do?

A common way of dealing with minor encroachments is to sell the strip of land that is involved to the neighbor.

If they are interested in terminating the rental contract for $$, there's no issue I can see.A lawyer is your best source of info so call one and pay the $50 for the 5 minutes to be certain if you're going to lose sleep over it.But beyond that, if you are depending on the 3 units rental income to make your payments while you rehab one at a time, then it makes more sense to remove one at a time.  

Everything that you are writing makes 100% sense, it isn't crazy at all, if anything is better than most people get.

Good enough for a rehab but not quite for a purchase.We’re looking to get into “Fix and Flip” to increase capital and maybe BRRR it if the numbers make sense, but our ultimate goal eventually is to Buy and Hold.