The 2nd appraisal fee is a built-in check against that, since OP wouldn't want to do that if they knew in their heart-of-hearts that that was the cause of the delay. 

No co-signers accepted, cause at the end of the day I’m renting to the person not there co-signer. 

None of it was his fault and it was the plumber that I hired that caused the leak issue.

This caused neighbors to complain and we were shut down with a stop work order for about 4 months.

Many times, this kind of issue may just be caused by shrinkage in materials after the home was built. 

They could send cashier checks via mail but that is slow and causes more work for the tenants which could delay payment too.

After reading reports of serious, damaging fires caused by electric car batteries, I'm considering disqualifying potential tenants who have electric cars and putting a clause in my lease prohibiting electric cars and stating that the tenant expressly assumes all risk of damage to the property arising from electric car fires.

Everyone is recommending manage it myself, but I am in fear that with my job and upcoming kid will cause me to make mistakes with hiring bad capenters, repair people, etc.

I think your 7-hour distance is a serious drawback that will cause serious problems with dealing with contractors and the time to complete the project will take 1 to 2 years if you are not hands-on and not driving the contractors to do good work and complete the work within a reasonable amount of time. 

It's kinda complicated rn cause I have family living in it that wasn't paying before I got it and is most likely not going to pay now.