If you live in a spirit of fear, you will not find success in this business.There is always a bargain to be had. 

The longer I hold out, I fear the prices will continue to get more insane and miss an opportunity to build a real estate portfolio. 

You could also use a process server, but I like sending someone with a gun and a badge to put a little fear into people.

I am going to guess that your wife has other concerns and the biggest is probably "fear of the unknown".

I have thought about increasing rent entirely, but I fear potential tenants will be scared away by the much higher than market rent price listed because they don't realize what utilities cost.

We feared massive unemployment, another global financial crisis, and a sudden evaporation of real estate property values.

 Fear stems from the unknown!

It sounds like your fears and concerns are indirectly related to real estate and more related to being an entrepreneur at the starting phase. 

Scott, It is much more affordable for us than places like Charlotte, the Research Triangle area and Wilmington, but I believe the prices will still increase (though in general I fear the housing bubble like the early 2000s, but that's another conversation).

I'm not proud of how we got to this point, because I consider myself to be a good/honest person mostly, but I guess we were fearing that they would say no, and got greedy with the $700/month cash flow opportunity.