If you hadn’t raised rents in 5 years and suddenly desire to raise rents because people being displaced by disaster has increased demand, this law appears made to prevent that.Just my opinion, talk to a lawyer before you raise rents and keep in mind statewide rent control on top of that if it applies to your property.

You want the late fee to be a deterrent to paying late (and punitive in the event the deterrent isn’t effective), but not so high as to prevent the tenant from being able to catch up and get current.

If you're proactive with it, and ask periodically if anything needs fixing, you can prevent small issues becoming larger. 

The agents who've seen it say it's great value and has been done really nice (it's not the state or design of the place that's preventing people from moving in). 

What should be done to prevent them from keep happening?

Back-flow preventer device and 2.

Back-flow preventer device and 2.

The sad truth is, for what some of those D class neighborhood folks pay in rent (typically month-to-month), they could rent a mobile home or a small apartment in a safer location, so it is often history of violent crime or evictions that prevent them from doing so, keeping the area rougher than it should be. 

Find wholesalers and get on their list, go to meetups and network, drive for dollars, direct market for leads, etc.2 Things to proactively prevent failure1.

Would doing that deal prevent you from hitting other targets?