Is there some service that can provide contact information (name, address) of folks who are currently a 2-3 months late on their mortgage or possibly in a pre-foreclosure situation?  

If they do, there's another reason to just sell, and start again with your new improved knowledge.

However I believe there is an option to upgrade beyond the free service to access this feature. 

I have no affiliation to the following companies other than I have used, and continue to use their service.

Then, give them a free week of access to your list.If PropertyRadar comes to your neck of the woods I think your service might be in trouble though!

I think the issues that you are going to run into is that technically you incurred these costs before you started your rental activities and before you placed the property into service.

We offer full-service property management.

If they get sick enough where they can't pay, be patient, but also see if they have family or any special services can help out

You could put $25K down on 4 $100K properties.You cannot exchange into improvements on property you already own so in order to include significant improvements in your 1031 you would need to do what is called a reverse exchange.  

The reason I ask is I'm trying to determine if you can drive up the value of 2-4 unit multis simply by raising the rent vs making capital improvements.