First off, pardon me if I misunderstand things given the limited amount of information I have, but there are 2 things right off the bat just from your description that could be contributing to your issue: 1) a 2nd floor unit - I had a similar setup for a duplex I owned in St.

Joe I think one of the issues with rentals that need to be fed is how people have such a fixation on ROI and leverage . 

I'd really vet the developer, their past projects, talk to prior partners (GP & LP) to see how prior development deals worked out and how the communication was, etc.

There are guidelines and guardrails, but a challenging deal can have positives and a golden deal can have issues below the surface.

That is done via placing the highest quality tenant possible, keeping issues to absolute minimum, keeping maintenance and service calls to minimum, because to make it work properties have to operate on cruise-control.

I think your biggest issue with any "work-arounds" is going to be your legal liability and holding the proper insurance in case something goes wrong, which I'm going to assume you'd need to be properly licensed in order to be properly covered by insurance.

Traveling to other states isn’t an issue for me. 

It had some issues, but at that price it will have issues.  

On paper numbers and in reality numbers are completely different. this is because with riskier investments you have higher chances for evictions, maintenance issues, management calls, non payments of rent, damage to property etc.

Depending on the severity of smoke damage and structural issues, it could be a huge challenge for first time flip.