Anything shorter than that will reduce the useful life of your equipment.  

As our portfolio LTV has come down (presently 57%), we have pre-arranged LoC facilities and reduced the amount of cash-on-hand.

If they refuse to pay, I'd issue a pay or quit notice and possibly offer to let them break lease for a reduced or waived fee prior to evicting them.

They have lots of methods to reduce the costs. 

If you can reduce your "needs" by $200/mo you have accomplished the same thing, and more.So what is step #2 (after getting that job) ?  

I'll throw one scenario out where you reduce debt then invest - $65k Salary at 25% tax bracket = $48k take home- If you save $1k a month (we'll round up to $12.5k a year) leaving you with $3k per month for living expenses (your rent is free) assuming you don't take on consumer debt and purchase a used car $3k should not be a struggle for you with room more aggressive saving, but we'll keep it conservative for now. 

It works because by paying down big chunks of principal the total term of the loan is reduced which, in turn, reduces the total interest paid.

It would reduce my expenses by 200 bucks and also allow me to take advantage of tax benefits of owning a property. 

I'd have viewed it as negligence on the seller's part resulting in financial injury to you as it substantially reduced the value of the property.Yes - maintain valuable relationship, by all means.Everyone should have learned from this lesson, however: if you're going to act unilaterally, be careful not to ***-u-me anything about the other party's actions. 

Given average rents of $1,500/month, it would be worth it to spend $20,000 to install a solar array if it can help you reduce vacancy rates by even a single percentage point.