All landlords experience situations like this (experience through pain/expense). 

Another option is a revised Tenant-in-Common agreement, outlining property management, expense sharing, and a potential buy-out provision in the future under specific conditions.

Structural repairs can be very expensive, so it can be hard for condo associations to convince members to pay for them / to save money to pay for them in the future.

They took it back and had is audited and redone by someone "whose been doing this for a long time" and when I got it back, the updated amount due was literally a fraction of what they initially stated (my taxes due were literally overstated by like $15k)But then, someone else reviewed it one more time and again, they caught something else they "missed" which changed my amount due again and it went up by another $4k or so.At this point, I've called in my old tax preparer and she's doing her own audit so that we can compare the 3 returns TS has given me with what she gets — which is another expense incurred for me. 

IF he sold using seller financing, there is a good chance that the say 10K in principal that might be due the first year would only be taxed at 15% from being in a lower tax bracket.

Lake Keowee has always been expensive, but I just saw a log cabin sale for less than $500k and it peaked my interest.

If there are additional expenses they need to be taken into consideration such as if you are paying for water/sewer, gas or oil, trash, plowing or lawn care, HOA fees if there are any, CapEx, maintenance, vacancy, mortgage, taxes.

We did most of the renovation ourselves, but there were few things we contracted out which were more expensive than we imagined.

I am aware that Southern California in general is expensive and positive cash flow appears non-existent.

If you would still like to move forward with the deal reach out to other lenders and see if their rate and closing costs are lower.