The seller countered my offer with a flat $200,000 and we were under contract.

If you don't have a lot of assets, then you could end up spending a lot of money protecting a small amount of assets which is counter productive. 

The counter-argument is that these hours were part of your ongoing activity as a property manager and not that of an aspiring realtor.. 

Granted the water main is on the other side of the street, so it's a longer trench they need to dig, but it still seems like a lot of money for what is basically put two pipes in the ground.

On that day, last Thursday, all under home water pipes burst due to them having been frozen and gas being off.

I asked them what you were supposed to do about drain pipes from sinks etc b/c those require demo'ing the flooring/slab to install new and it's insanely expensive.

@Aaron Duplex,Lets just be real, I'm with @Steve VaughanLets see.. in the past 2 weeks, had a gas line bust a sewer pipe, so the poop was literately going into the street.. when we were assessing the situation, i swear the smell stayed on our clothes!....   

@Bradley Payne I am going to run counter culture here and recommend that you do not start out owning apartments.

In the meantime, get space heaters so the pipes don't freeze and offer the option for your tenants to move into an airbnb or an extended stay hotel. 

A few areas where old pipes are sticking out of the ground.