In the meantime, you can collect some rent, have a place to reasonably live and create equity and an investment at the same time.  

The city says I am liable and want to collect/put lien.

Some owners may have experienced higher than normal collection expenses due to non payment of rent.    

Your mortgage debts should be offset by the property rent that is collected and then the net result from that added to your income or debt.

I reached out and found a pm that charges 10% of only rent collected for basic services.

I have zero retirement savings and am eager to start building a passive-income portfolio so I am not a burden to my child.One of my biggest hurdles is that I need to boost my income so that in the bank's eyes I can afford the mortgage payment BEFORE collecting any rent.

He also said prices on 2-4unit buildings are skyrocketing because in Utah's market right now they're the collectible cars of real estate.

I plan to manage using a landlord app (currently looking at RentRedi) to help with listing, tenant screening, rent collection, maintenance requests, etc.  

You can’t avoid the sales tax….that is for resellers who are charging and collecting the sales tax to the end buyer. 

It collects our rent, markets our properties, screens our tenants, tracks our expenses, etc, etc for about $4 a month per door.