Without diving so deep into the weeds, the biggest factors I tell people who want to start out passively are:1.

If you don't have a deep pipeline, its very difficult for any builder to maintain a steady flow of builds.

The second property, I’m in deep trouble.

The bounced checks are of incredibly deep concern, we can only imagine what he is doing with all the owners money behind the scenes.

It would be so helpful to do a 'deep dive': how much did you buy the house for, how many bedrooms, how much do they each rent for?

and i speak from experience on this end I bought over 250 C Ds coming out of the GFC in the mid west and deep south.. it was as you describe 2 steps forward one backward.. after two years and coming to same place you are today I sold out to my partners and let them take it.

At the end of the day you're only going to be as successful as that team allows you to be so I would definitely advise doing a deep dive and  visiting, if possible, who you'd be investing with and where before pulling the trigger. 

Without getting too deep into the weeds, there are a few ways to do this, including:- write up an assignable lease and an option to buy which the seller signs, then assign the lease and option agreements to a tenant-buyer.

Basically questions that the PM/co-host need to be able to answer without having to do any deep-dive analysis.Property-specific questions such as property improvement advice, revenue potential, etc. that involve deep-dive analysis might justifiably incur an up-front cost depending on the PM/co-hosts business model.

If things are tight right now, maybe consider a side hustle or extra job until rent adjustments give you more breathing room.