The worst thing in the world is to watch someone spend 20 years paying for their house, and lose it because they lost their job which they were faithful to.

We continued to work from my father in laws guidance, stating we did this in good faith know he never had an issue with this before and the fact we were expecting our first trial.

What is the penalty for NOT making a good faith effort to fulfill those requirements?

You negotiate in good faith with class.  

After thinking about this more as I read y'alls responses, I guess I currently don't have that much faith that everything will go according to plan and I want to make sure I'm not being spread too thin, but at the same time capture the gains of long term growth whether it be index funds or REI. 

Blended travel costs would be $2,250 per year ($1,500 * 1.5) and $200/month * 12 months = $2,400.Sure, you can get by with not visiting if you have complete trust and faith in your property manager.

@Jay Hinrichs I have faith in the big 3,4, 5 engineers here. 

Buying the first investment property is always a leap of faith. 

However, I know investors as well who bought anything that broke even and let equity and rents build over time and if you can afford that scenario and have a long time horizon, odds are very good of long term success (would think unless you buy in a neighborhood that turns from B/C to D/F/warzone over time, so also like the general idea of going with the best neighborhood you can afford and stay out of really bad areas unless you want to focus on that market niche and deal with more tenant issues-collections, turn over/evictions and also would not put a lot of faith in third party managers handling that amount of work well, and consider any places that look great on paper if you want to self manage and be much more hands on.

Keep the faith that they'll be on the curb soon.