An engineered wood floor of good quality( not the box store 5/16 garbage) would be a good choice and handle the temperature and moisture extremes better.

Just the $300 The title report could tell you that the seller has judgment liens and mortgage debt in excess of the value of the property.  

I just want to try to protect us from excessive property damage.

You might have to evict them for causing excessive damage or perhaps misrepresenting income on a tenant questionnaire? 

I also include in each welcome packet a step by step for how to call the power company and report an outage as well as how to reset a flipped breaker.This tenant has been short term so far and has had issues paying rent every month, and makes excessive requests (in frequency and in "reasonable-ness").The tenant is not responsible for deciding if a handyman is needed, but if one is called out and it isnt a landlord responsibility, shouldn't that go back to the tenant? 

My understanding of a Net Listing:Net Listing provision states that seller will receive a net amount of money (say 150k for their house) from any sale, with the excess going to the listing broker as commission (broker sells for 175k, keeps 25k for them self).

Lots, 1/4 acre in my area run about 75K, an acre will be about 200/250K as there is excess land.

It would be my guess the vinyl hasn't been keeping the water out either.Bottom line is that no siding is going to be completely waterproof and you want to do your best to keep any source of moisture away from the home.  

I'll try to explain the various levels of participation and how you can take passive losses against ordinary income.Under Section 469, an activity is classified as passive if the activity is a trade or business activity in which the taxpayer does not materially participate during the year or a rental activity.Section 469(i)(1) permits certain taxpayers who actively participate in rental real estate activity to deduct up to $25,000 of losses arising from the rental real estate activity, if the taxpayer cannot meet the material participation test required to be categorized as a real estate professional.The $25,000 permitted loss is reduced by 50% of the taxpayer's adjusted gross income (AGI) in excess of $100,000.

Purchase plus reno plus closing is going to put you in excess of 90k.