See if there is another person you can deal with on the renters end, a brother, mother sister u can talk to also, if this person is nuts, they would know, and it gives you a buffer that may help talk this guy off the ledge!

This is super important because if you miss on point #1 above, you still have a "buffer" to insulate you to some degree from short term market fluctuations.3)I ALWAYS make sure financially I can easily afford to hold the property through thick and thin.

PMCs are a really great way to help create a buffer between you and some of those tenants that can get to you.

The majority here are giving sound advice, don't shoot from the hip on this one, get zeroed-in and consult a lawyer.Nobody here wants you to be in a kind of whizbang situation you feel uncomfortable in, but neither are they rifled to see the scope of such buffering the rights of others.Bottom line, guns can be scary when you are unfamiliar with them.

Also, how about negotiating a "buffer period" clause or "training period" prior to closing so that you can build a repore and see how he runs the parc.  

If you don't have this buffer, focus on getting it built up.I would also have a very frank discussion with the agent that placed this tenant.  

I would not expect a purchase to go through by when you want it to, I would definitely plan a buffer.

Ultimately he is party to the crime and he may be participating as the buffer in the middle to keep people from finding the owner. 

This reserve amount represents roughly 2–3 years of projected repair costs, which might be a conservative approach, but it gives us a buffer for unexpected, high cost repairs when they pop up.With a larger portfolio, the reserve pool wouldn’t need to grow proportionally, as funds and repairs can be balanced across properties, allowing costs to offset each other over time.

I'm open to all ideas and input, the more I know and understand, the better decision would be.Investing out of state, with no REI experience, in a market you are not familiar with, relying 100% on providers you don't know, paying retail (or more) with no extra equity buffer, no exit strategy if the property doesn't work as expected as a rental, and properties that are thousands of miles away sounds far riskier and speculative to me.