To Find a house on the beach you will be looking at paying over a million. 

That is my definition of "treating tenants like paying customers with fairness, care, and respect."

If she doesn't have the money to pay 2x the rent, have her pay 1x (or if you can get it rented for Aug, refund her the difference so you aren't collecting double the rent). 

The seller was a foreign landlord who was behind on a few years of taxes, and the property was in C5 condition at the time of initial appraisal.

I can't speak too much to North Jersey but I will say the higher taxes make it tough to have numbers work in your favor up there.

I specifically need really user friendly accounting features (including ability to sync with quickbooks and print checks directly from the site/software), customizable online application, and online rent-pay as an option (hopefully with free or very cheap ACH). 

Now you need to figure out how to find deals and pay for them.

If you need financial help, ask under the "Finance, Tax, and Legal" forum.

But even if they were legit, how much could you learn by investing $35 into tax liens themselves instead of paying them? 

For DSCR, a 3 yr prepayment penalty and paying 1-1.5 points will put you pari passu with Conventional products right now for the most part.