You attract better tenants with gas as well as decrease your vacancy.I thought gas would also add value but my dad thought it wouldn't change the arv at all.

If you leverage, you are now able to buy 4 4-unit properties because you only need 25% down. in this scenario you are paying interest, maybe 6%, but because the interest is a write off, you're only actually paying closer to 5% interest. you may have decreased your cashflow per property but ultimately have the ability to get more cashflow from multiple properties in total

Remember rent increases OR price decreases will increase CAP rate.

It has been on market of a while and the price has recently decreased to a very low value in the area that i only see on very distressed property's.

If the incentive to fix and maintain the asset is capped at a political derived (aka arbitrary) figure, investment will continue to decrease.

If you don't pay the money back however, your death benefit is decreased. 

With the damage described, my advice is to wait and watch for price decreases; a contract with "no contingencies" means cash with no inspection period aka "buying it blind." 

Will prices stabilize or decrease?

You can say you will just bill back to the residents, but that's not always feasible in some markets and we know that total water consumption decreases 30+% when residents are responsible for actual amount used not just a fixed bill back.

But from RE side, mostly decreases in office rents/values, and to some extent in rents and values on residential not crazy... tough to call though...