Like most advice surrounding passive investing, this advice may apply in certain cases but the answer really lies in due diligence on the sponsor rather than a broad-brush rule.As a longtime syndicate sponsor I've been funded by both HNW equity and institutional LPs, so I've seen both sides of this first hand. 

But if you want an ROI, as well,  the industry has been lying to you, and everyone else.Foreclosures, probates taxliens... all circumstances that explicitly do not drive motivation to sell.I am writing a book on the topic and here is a passage from my book.Circumstance does not imply motivation.

Also, ideally, something that allows the landlord to upload receipts and have OCR technology capture and input the data where it needs to be in the system automatically.

Whoever told you owning RE is passive income was lying to you.

Stay patient, focus on cash flow, and be ready for the opportunities that lie ahead.

We've been communicating quarterly on the property status, but a simple search on Zillow made me think he's lying to me.

This leads to lying/ misleading to make people think they are the real deal.

In fact I would bet not even the asset protection services who send you down these rabbit holes can and therein lies the problem...

The more forward-thinking fractional companies are utilizing blockchain technology to automate a lot of the backend to help with this. 

Older people like this often need a little extra help with technology.