The only person willing to lend me money was Paulie—a guy who charged a point a week and always had a baseball bat within arm’s reach.

Just my personal experience.

Being a normal person and giving someone a heads up has not bit me, yet.In addition to what the law requires, I always shoot the tenant a heads up either via text, call, or email.If they are mostly responding to email, then shoot them an email.Emojis and gifs work wonders in today's day in age.

I would build a relationship with the person before you decide to partner.

Personally never heard of this scheme or way to set up transactions. 

Personally, I believe it's preferable to have stricter requirements and wait for a qualified tenant.

There is no point in doing a 1031 exchange if you expect a loss from the transaction.A 1031 is meant to defer your gain.There are numbers which you can analyze and stress which is not easy to analyze.It looks like you are stressed with this investment and I would sell.I personally, however, would look to make the improvement for $10,000 to get one of the other units up and running.

I was implying about the type of person the original poster is.

Quote from @James Wise:I need to dig up a podcast that I listened to about 2 months ago with Tom Ferry, and the person was giving all the states, You are pretty close to that number on 5 days or more.. 95% range, the industry is very off kilter these days with the low activity of 2023 and 2024 that most people licensed just retired, gave up, or thought they were going to do something and never could get a sale due to bad leadership.

Quote from @Leonard La Rocca III: So is it common to find a conventional loan without meeting the lender in-person?