This is a passive way of earning with real estate-based security, protection and insurance. 

Most wholesaling firms will make an agent put their commission on top of the deal so why would your investor do that when they could cut you out of the deal.

Keep in mind that many of these cheap homes are selling for less than a third of their insurance replacement value, which really means that the land has negative value - let that sink in.Most buyers who can actually qualify for a mortgage will get a PA for $200-300k and desperately want to upgrade their life.

However, after running the numbers accounting for insurance, PMI, taxes, vacancy, capX, property manager, etc. the property is estimated -1.85% cash on cash return (-$600/mo) once I fully rent the property.

As others have stated, it's tough to lose the various benefits (health insurance, 401k employer match, etc), not to mention the income itself. 

Is your DSCR ratio greater than 1-meaning are you cash flowing (according to the lender's criteria of mortgage, property taxes and insurance (and HOA) if applicable).

Costs have escalated sharply, water up 25%, electric up 30% and natural gas up 33%, and at one property insurance went up 400%.

Reason being, if something goes wrong, the PM is covered (and so are you) by the plumber's insurance and license.Apparently, this is around the same price other people around the US are paying. 

Make sure you update your insurance policy.

This is helpful and I'll need to do more research into a couple more firms to reduce the costs.