Take into consideration that when the person you gifted the property to will have special tax considerations as well 

One caveat to this strategy is that you can’t live in a property that your IRA owns, nor can you rent it out to anyone else who may be considered a disqualified person like your spouse or child.Feel free to connect with me and send me a direct message if you want to learn more!

Just my personal opinion - get a mentor or a person who already has good experience running STR business, preferably in your area (but not 100% required). 

Build connections with local professionals, talk to them in person, and value there time over yours.

Choose a goal so ambitious it forces you to grow into the person who can achieve it.

I would personally put them in notice just because they never tried to communicate it on the back end of fixing it.

You now don't seem like the type of person most of us would accept a recommendation from.

But the risk to the seller on this deal is immense you have a guy tying up a property who has no ability to close it and then sell it to whoever will give him money and that person could be nefarious get into title rip rents could give 2 craps about the sellers credit etc etc..

I haven't personally dealt with any crazy insurance premiums such as the ones people have been advertising in like Tampa, FL.

The biggest mistake I see out of state investors make is relying on others too much for direction and guidance instead of doing their own due diligence and building their own team that they actually meet and interviewRelying on one person who alleges that they have a 'team' built already that you can use as well can be a costly mistake.