When you have both, it's very hard to quit and when you find it hard to quit-- it's likely you won't fail. 

It took quite a good time (~6months) even with a property manager but finally found the renter after rent decrease by 200$.

Renovations were quite a bit more than we had expected due to more issues than we were aware of.

I'm seeking advise from people who may have been down this road before on whether we should seeking other financing methods to go LLC to LLC or quit claim the lot back to our personal names to satisfy the 1031 exchange rules. 

I've done quite a few. 

I know we're still ok with it because we're renting and it's booking quite a bit.

The wife can get her name off of the property by doing a quit claim deed to him, but that does not get her name off of the loan.

Quote from @Diana Teng: Hi all,I think my question above is pretty direct.I'm interested to buy my first rental property, and after doing a brief search I see that there are quite a number of places out-of-state (I live in NY state)  that offer affordable homes that deem to be in hot market areas right now (according to many different articles online). 

Quite a bit cheaper than HML.Hope that helps and good luck!

They do this on purpose so new people get tripped up in the process and quit.