In Atomic Habits, James Clear makes a great point-  it's our habits that sustain us when motivation fails.  

I am trying to break out of some bad habits we are falling into.

In my area I can also rent my unit in 2 days and raise the rent, so it might be different for you.In your situation, if they are try to buy out the lease I really don’t see the harm in that.I’d love to hear what others have to say.

Make it a habit to only entertain certain properties that have their own meter and it will make life much easier.

I really recommend James Clear's writing about habit creep.

the house that needs the septic  .. for instance is probably not habitable.. and septics depending on the type of system etc.. can cost 20 to 50k to put in.. just saying thats why the price is probably where its at.. looks like a nice deal though but i dont know where there are that steep of mountians in N OHIO.

You might find this thread (https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/432/topics/36...) useful @Jay Helms Also, I don't see any harm in mentioning your REI in casual conversation.

I find that more times than not, when a property is remaining vacant that is habitable and priced correctly, the broker is the problem.

We don’t know anyone in the area, but you might want to read our series about “How to Screen a PMC Better than a Tenant”, since selecting the wrong PMC is usually more harmful than selecting a bad tenant: https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/3094/91877-how-to-screen-a-pmc-better-than-a-tenant-part-1-services-and-processesAdditionally, don't treat property management like a commodity and just focus on the lowest price!

In this case I wouldn’t have gone as far as paying for their hotel if the unit is habitable, so it looks like you made a good call in my opinion.