Anyhow, seems crazy to think that all these people that are gearing up to get their properties on the market after two years would be told they'd have to stay another 3 or be taxed heavily. 

Looks like your skills will take you quite far in RE - cause this is heavily a business/marketing game (at least for the successful ones, it seems!)

I'm also heavily invested in mutual funds.

Is this still a heavily sought after area?

Rentometer.com, padmapper.com, or zillow.com are good tools, but don't rely on them too heavily.  

Brian does bring up an option; however, this also heavily depends upon what you can sell it for versus what you owe on the property, if you can't sell it for what you owe or more then just pay the note down to increase your cash flow.

General pest control cost will vary and depends heavily on square footage of the property.

Supposedly, there's verbiage in the legislation that heavily protects the homeowner from foreclosure scam artists.

If you lack money, make sure to invest heavily in your education and 10X your effort.

So connect to a 1031 Agent, market the quad heavily to get it sold and continue to look for the next best investment.