My goal is to pay less than I would renting and get my feet wet with REI and landlording without bleeding too much every month.

In this for the long term wealth building but don't want to bleed $500-1000 in negative cashflow every month. 

Plenty of people will either be screwed if they do or screwed if they don't.Wonder if there will be any bleed over from this fallout to stock market or other investment markets.

As others have said - start a conversation with the lien holder(s)... Well

You can't sit here and take a property that's bleeding north of $5k/mo in rent. 

Big jury award in a personal injury type lawsuit, or spouse and/or children wresting control away from you when you get older, or one bad deal for one property bleeds over the makes the others vulnerable, or you find yourself unable to pay huge tax liability at some point and want to be judgment proof on paper so IRS cannot seize assets and has to do an offer in compromise with you?

Property has been on the market to sell or lease every since (and clearly bleeding cash!)

Think of a shorties finger bleeding out

It’s run by a political machine that is bleeding it dry.

In addition, from an accounting perspective there is no return until negative position has been recovered regardless if you sell or refi.If Piti is $4800 and rent is $4k to $5k, you would bleed negative cash flow.