We chose to walk away and let him take it off our hands for about a $40,000 profit after expenses.  

If you're doing a BRRRR (which I don't recommend doing from far away if not experienced), having honest contractors walk properties for you.

Maybe walk through a few of their properties before agreeing to anything

In addition to this you should also walk all of the units.

If you're not familiar with the area, I would  come for a weekend and drive/walk through areas you might be interested in.

I rode around and managed to find a few people working on rehabs and found out who they were renting to, rents they were getting, and one guy was kind enough to walk me through his rehab project.

Take a leisurely walk through home depot or Lowes.

My initial reaction from my walk through above would be that the holding period in the Real Estate doesn't begin until you have the rights and benefits associated with the real estate - so the earliest at the end of the redemption period, but really beginning once you take possession and can start doing stuff with the property.Some further digging I found some examples of it, but if you were a paying client I would be spending more time to see if there were any subsequent changes to this rule - at the very least Bloomberg isn't calling it out on me ;) . 

I understand this happens when you walk around a neighborhood but I've seen many people invest out-of-state and still do fine.

$300K should allow you to buy a duplex/2-unit and both doors should be offering a profit even at 15% down.If you are in a situation where you are getting hit with high taxes, high rate, low rents it might be a "Walk away deal".I have to have conversations daily talking people out of buying a particular home because its a bad deal.