You have not done any improvements or repairs to the property from the way it sounds.

Ahh, the fun situations we all run into while trying to honestly improve a neighborhood and, make earned money for your work and creativity and at time save a degrading house that helps turn in into a home - don't worry, it happens to us all at times. 

Best of luck over the next year making the improvements and getting the rents up!

I'm very passionate about the revitalization efforts and serve on various committees dedicated to improving the artistic community, accessibility, tourism of the downtown.

Did you possibly get an "improvement location certificate" or survey when you purchased?  

This is a new private loan set up through a broker that the borrower took out to pay off an existing tax lien and was supposedly going to use the rest of the funds to make improvements to the property.  

Out to the periphery East Bay in Richmond, West Oakland, East Oakland, on some good streets, w/ some hands-on management, bought at significant discounts, and improved to a highly performing property.

He said they don't care about comps, this is the price.Another potentially good money maker will sit on the market, decay even further and do nothing to raise my property value or improve a neighborhood.

Land is not that expensive in the south and if you are getting financing, a bank will mainly focus on the improvements (house). 

We are also working to complete our background check integration and improvements to our online application feature so hopefully all of these updates should be available in early August, but we don't have a set release date yet.