If you wait until that area is completely revitalized, you're going to pay for it.

I'm in a situation where i'm newly self employed (1.5 years) so dont have enough tax records to qualify for FHA lending. 

Conversely you are assuming the risk of maintenance, cap ex expenditures, and rising costs like insurance, taxes etc.

But surely you can evict if they cause a lot of damage or don’t pay their rent, right? 

I want you to be likely to pay me back even if the deal does not go perfectly.  

The one item that is kind of neat, is that you can pay a higher commission for higher visibility. 

That's how I started - renting out a spare bedroom to a roommate and I still do that because once I learned I didn't have to pay my whole mortgage it was hard to imagine paying it all myself again, haha!

(https://learn.lofty.ai/en/articles/7025226-sell-equity-in-yo...)I understand I can also sell and do a 1031 - I've successfully done that once, and failed a second time (could not win an offer and ran out of time - had to pay a ton of capital gains tax). 

People offer to pay cash up front or rent for a longer term in hopes of avoiding any scrutiny.

At first I assummed the late rent would get resolved and they would be in better shape to pay on time, unforuntatly, its been 8 months of the same late rent.