Best of luck to you -

The best place to start is with a spreadsheet that has every every cost itemized. 

What are some ways I can verify that tenants are protected throughout the entire lease? 

We built a single family home version of a 2 bed 1 bath with surface parking at cost with no profit all in with land for 175k in newark ohio, a suburb of columbus ohio. when we push that to 3 units and closer to the city for our build to rent model the numbers go way better. a 30k slab for a single family home is 30k, a 30k slab for a triplex is 10k a door. we designed a 2 bed 1 bath design at 668 sq ft and it's very good layout even I would live there, but I would never build anything that small again. there's no economies of scale. you need density and shared lines, resources, shared roof shared slab, shared windows, etc the cost goes way down.

If you want an easy way to visualize your rental finances, there are some solid bookkeeping apps and spreadsheets that can automate a lot of it.

Seller financing at way lower interest than traditional lender rate.

Hi Wynn,Your best option is a "subject-to" or wraparound mortgage if your seller is open to it.

I don't have much advice as now the profits are gone and it seems like the best thing to do is to get your money out the deal and move on.  

Nothing to concern CA RE investors   Best wishes

Well, this my opinion, if you like unpredictability, constant change and people/contractors with no regards to you or your property then "YES" flips and STRs are the way to go...LOL....I love it!!!