People are at different stages in their real estate journeys, in their life, in accumulating wealth, etc. 

Spend the time researching your market, go visit other landlords properties to see what they are offering and better understand how they structure their leases.At this stage you should already KNOW whether STR/MTR/LTR is the plan.

The payments should be covering the interest (and most of the payment in the early stages of the loan goes to the interest). 

FYI we've changed our approach entirely and have lower fee initial entry points to avoid the challenges of long term project based arrangements so we can catch issues much sooner.

The next stage could be a cosmetic BRRRR, that way you can learn to scale your rental portfolio.

As long as everyone's happy with the arrangement, that's what really matters.

I am in the preliminary stages on one in Yonkers as we speak.

Question is, if it’s a back-to-back loan arrangement, will the interest part of the repayment be taxable income to me?

'Despite attempts to communicate with the tenant since December, including two attempts to arrange key collection on the 29th, I've received no response.

Since you're also getting a management fee, it seems like a reasonable arrangement.