It will be difficult to assert that this is a commercial deal if you bought it in your own name, and it's a 1-4 unit.

Sounds like I need to be more assertive. 

My thought is that most of the time the defaulting party does not know their rights and just leaves the property if it is a residence or does not assert their equitable lien if it is a piece of raw land.Even after Dodd-Frank I know there are a lot of land contracts still being done here in Kentucky on both on raw land and residences, mostly probably in violation of Dodd-Frank (D-F), as I see seller's still recording them at the county clerk's office. 

My team has two 3-families off market right now and there is normally plenty of inventory coming and going the key is to be intentional about the properties you go see and assertive when you find a soft spot.

Your best best would be to try to put some political pressure on him, as others have suggested if you sincerely believe he is asserting the protection in bad faith solely for purposes of delay.  

It’s interesting, there are other threads on this board by some who are totally hung-up, asserting that there is some relevant difference between a private and hard money lender.

But if you are assertive and aggressive about property management, it can go a long way to keeping people paying.

The buyers agent's main job seems to be asserting their value in a business that has changed drastically over the past 10 years so that they can avoid becoming obsolete. 

I hadn't seen anything suggesting that the landlord (or PM) needed to be personally present in other forum posts, so thought I'd ask the community to verify or refute this assertion?

I would assert that when investing in rental property the traits to prioritize are STABLE, predictable, high quality, new construction, hands off, turn key and above a 6 cap rate.