This is 24 buyers.After the 6th month, your first round buyers are ready again to buy an other property from you.Now, a lot can go wrong for the buyers, and some buyers may do something wrong, stupid, and drown, die, loose their money, explode, internally combust, turn into smurfs... and can no longer continue investing.

So I ended up paying for what they called EXCESS LIABILITY for my rental from a different agency and the coverage is specifically for the rental ppty and nothing else.Do most personal liability umbrella ins cover claims that arise from anywhere  in the country or only cover claims that originate in the state where the insured resides? 

If they are not happy with that, I'll send in my Realtor and the lister looses half comm.

As @Mike Dymski points out the interest you pay only matters if you do not achieve a return in excess of the interest charged.  

I usually deal with these issues with concrete parge coating: remove all loose or soft brick, fill the hole with new brick and apply a parge coat (up to a certain height, often 3') across the length to protect the brick from further erosion.

The $15 increase, which does not seem excessive to me (10% is not crazy) only costs you $900 over the next 5 years, which you are very unlikely to get reversed and will likely spend on lawyers fees for just the initial consult and research. 

Create some amount of passive income (or at least in excess of the base expenses for the properties);3.

That seems a little excessive, and I usually go for the carpet bombing approach to renovation.

"Executor" gets thrown around loosely.  

The scenario I listed above is based on no big impact on the tenant such as the house is excessively warm or cold.