It seems you have your seasons a little bit off: February is a slow month for Sedona and March is when things start to pick up.

Continue with project and dont let him slow you down more, deal with him along the way.

Such as deep clean, nonexistent items charged for and inflated prices for stocking. any chance I can get my money back?

While insurance has covered some costs, the process has been stressful, even with a property manager (their responsiveness to these issues has been slow).

They can be slow to respond but overall I have been pleased. 

LOLJust from listening to some of his REI podcast, haven't analyzed any DD docs or anything deep.

.: I agree 100% - part of the problem is a lot of RE investing these days is marketed as a get rich quick scheme where you'll be able to buy a few rent houses, make monthly passive income, retire and travel the world.the best way to "get rich quick scheme" is to work for a company that can print money for you/for a company and that amount keeps increasing while you are not doing anything more. that's the actual secret lolRE is more like get-rich-very-slow-while-work-on-RE-more-than-your-W2-scheme.

So I would say pick no more than 2 or 3 markets maximum and really drill deep into those markets, really get to know them.

Slow paced but I'm trying.    

Don't let your momentum slow down....