My end goal is to get another stream of income that will take me into a comfortable retirement.  

Since you're already acting as a long-distance landlord, I would expect you'd be comfortable doing so again.

With one of them, who applied, it ended up with him asking me to prove I owned the property and going over the lease with a fine-toothed comb (after he missed a couple of deadlines to get things back to me, I moved on and denied him).I figured the facts that 1) prospective tenants see the property and can talk with the current tenants to ask about the property and me, and 2) that they have to submit an application and go through a credit and background check, and 3) that I was using Cozy to collect payments and 4) that I am available by phone, email and text whenever they want, would be enough to make people comfortable that they are not getting scammed, but it was apparently not enough for some people.Does anyone have any tips to help prospective tenants feel more comfortable dealing with you from afar and not feeling like they are getting scammed?

What I like is that you don't have to make the decision immediately to quit you job and only pursue real estate, you can do both until you're comfortable making the switch.  

It is a lot of pieces to negotiate and the renter/buyer is usually not sophisticated enough to be comfortable with it.

As Dave J. asked in the forum conversation about Ohio wholesaling, “What is your intent and how comfortable are you if you have to defend that position if you find the local real estate commission asking questions?”

Complete remodel" - are you comfortable with this?

I have always done my own GC'ing but never for a full blown foundation, I would definitely be comfortable with it but as you stated I dont want to pay for it later.

Somebody came in with a cash offer that the seller felt more comfortable with doing.  

I'm comfortable, he is very comfortable. 700+Credit?