Most agents will do what "you" feel is best in your interests while working to give you all the necessary details and options to make the best decision. 

For example we have one rental that has 3x in value and day 1 it was around negative $200 cash flow, today it is +300 cash flow but also have a huge equity and the tenant has also paid all the principal on this property. 

The all-in price should be right around $12 - $15 / sq yd, which will include the carpet, padding, all misc materials and install.

I recommend you add a little more detail to this post.. what kind of property etc etc.I have done probably more than 12 to 15 deals in south side all 2 to 4 flats.. at first they all sold to investors the last 3 or 4 sold to owner occ. 

Just for kicks, i looked up a few sf properties sold last year and see that land ranged from 40% to 60% so without knowing your property specifics, dunno why your land would be assessed 70%all i can suggest is look at comparable sales and see what the ratio is and then appeal using that dataalso i remember many years ago, a home was assessed higher than the transaction amount and after failing to reach agreement with assessor office, the homeowner reached out to the different elected city reps.

I was originally planning to put all my monthly returns to pay down the HELOC as quickly as possible so that I can get into the next property but am worried about how to deal with paying the taxes if I don't allocate any of the returns to the side.

It all depends on what the underlying zoning will allow. 

All we would like to do before repairing the ceiling is to get his confirmation that he no longer experiences any leaking.

But, excel is totally fine in the beginning (in addition to your PM software to capture transactions outside of the properties).We use QuickBooks Online exclusively for all of our REI Clients.

I have a multi family property where all units are facing a comon area.