You came to the right place, Kwanza! 

Most investors have rose-colored-glasses when it comes to their neighborhood quality.

You should read through some of these numerous posts on this topic.

@Jack Cottrell you post caught my eye.

Are you focusing on adding them in the general PHX area? 

Also any tips for automating this as much as possible and how to protect the property financially and property management would be appreciated.I ALMOST understand the rental arbitrage strategy if building a company scaling with say 30 + units and looking for high short term cash flow.  

The guy who runs it lays it out like this..1-5 rentals you are still doing okay, have more stuff come up between all rentals the closer you get to 5 or at 5.

Offering discounts and opening up your calendar are great steps.

After the demo, there really is not much you can do to save outside of thinking outside the box on fixing whatever that might be that has come up. 

There is a narrative among real estate investors that they can go it alone and just need someone to do the paperwork when it comes to negotiating deals.