As long as you follow the necessary steps and obtain the required permits and approvals from the city, you should be able to move forward with your plans successfully.4) In addition to securing financing and obtaining the necessary permits, you should also consider creating a detailed budget and timeline for the rehab and construction process.

We thought this would be great because he already has a rapport with the current tenants and we don't want to make major changes since we will be soon increasing the rents after some capital upgrades. 

I've been toying with the idea of scrapping the building and starting fresh, creating a six-story building with at least six units, one per floor to rent out.

If it's not specifically written in law that you can't do something, then you can.I learned that when I was creating my lease and had a question regarding smokers.

Initially I have some different ideas on how you can structure the loan to be more beneficial and create more cashflow up front.

I added value by installing four laundry rooms and kitchens in the existing spaces and separated them to create individual rentals.

Not sure how the fact that they used the same data company creates a monopoly. 

Someone upthread mentioned that Branson has had STRs longer than the booking channels have been around, and that illustrates a point related to this: in the olden days, when you'd look up a vacation rental in the classifieds, people were more tolerant of the idea that they were sort of borrowing someone else's house and things might not be completely perfect and they'd have to procure their own supplies, but these days, the booking channels have created almost hotel-like expectations.

I believe the neighbor has some beef with the city, and is trying to use this issue to create a problem for the city, my friend is just the unlucky guy who gets to be collateral damage.The small town utility department doesn't have record drawings of the laterals, and they are not being too helpful. 

You can/should sell if you don’t want the steady rental income and you don’t plan on investing in real estate for the rest of your life.