This brings a much greater liability into play, and in my opinion provides greater balance.Is this offering the best “deal” for a passive investors?  

Based on a quick answer from Perplexity it seems like there would be no issue with you buying the home and collecting passive income, but you may not be allowed to manage it yourself since that is considered active work.

Any recommendations on the most efficient way to track your time when classified as a real estate professional?

I want to utilize my arbitrage to obviously use for my personal life but also to create a hefty fund for investment properties later on the line. 

And what is your price point and are you looking for turn-key properties or something along the lines of a "fixer upper"?

I was looking for something along those lines to affirm what I was experiencing.

In the buyer line we would always write "*entity name* and/or assignees".

They do not deliver on what they said.  

I'm fairly handy, but just to balance things with my 9-5 job, focusing on something that just needs superficial updates or something nearly turn-key is probably best. 

Many lenders, even small ones, don't offer HELOCs on rental properties like yours.