You might be able to get some random Edison technician to say, "Well, I guess it would be okay," after eyeballing it, but that's no guarantee that after you buy the property, Edison or Long Beach or someone comes along and says you can't. 

You will need 20-25% down and a commercial loan for the rest.Most lenders will want to lend to an LLC with you personally guaranteeing the loan.Typically, each MFR would be purchased under its own LLC, for liability purposes.Each LLC would then also need its own bank accounts for collecting rents and paying expenses.

See if they have a money back guarantee.

I think you believed that requiring automatic payments set up would guarantee you on-time payments in some way.

I see too often that aspiring investors think real estate will be a much more passive source of income than your job, but I can almost guarantee you that you will extremely active especially when starting out. 

To suggest there aren't quality assets in those cities you mentioned I would virtually guarantee is faulty, as everywhere has something of value.

The lack of capital gain would already be a huge no no for me but so is the inferior property title (foreigners can't own land in Thailand).There are so many better ways to make a 10 - 12% ROI, which by the way you're not guaranteed to get (which would be ok if you could get capital gains)!

Is there a better guarantee that he won’t go MIA again?

The guaranteed payments from the housing authority is appealing to me.

I love section 8 because it guarantees a certain % of rent, the tenants really value that housing voucher and won't do things to risk losing it, and section 8 has strict criteria for condition of the unit which adds a layer of accountability on my property manager.