Has anybody came accross this issue and had such a hard time with this?

@Paige Kehoe cost vs time will be your biggest challenge!

Its not worth trying to collect it each month, the time and hassle, for the little amount of difference it will be over a good estimate. 

I’m a first time out of state investor and have yet to use a property manager.

Dead winter is not an ideal time to rent out a property so I expect it could take me 4-6 weeks or require discounting.

Also, appraisals are valuations at a point in time, and commercial markets can change rapidly.  

As part of the renovation, all of these were remedied however the violations were not cleared as I suspect the renos were done without the full permitting.The purchase agreement had a requirement to clear the violations prior to sale but the Seller and I agreed a fairly substantial seller credit to clear the violations as it was recognized there were risks around the renovation work and potential non compliance with permits that I may have to remedy.

You can not be 100% efficient 100% of the time.

I may be out of my price range, but the deal does look good, so I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on gap lending for a part of the down payment.

With this knowledge, it seems as though out-of-state investors are analyzing markets that have great job growth, high appreciation, low unemployment, low taxes, but are still "affordable" compared to standards in more expensive parts of the country.