My ultimate goal is to passively maintain rental properties through retirement, which I understand will take a serious amount of work for decades.

. #3 Incentives to Maintain the Property: Another advantage of the Section 8 program is that it requires tenants to take care of the rental property.

Could you and the seller form an LLC with the seller maintaining 20% ownership in the property.  

The case record contains the name and contact info of the personal representative or administer of the estate.Some counties maintain full case information online- others you will need to physically visit the court house to access the file.

Biggest struggle for my as a Landlord is getting the best tenants I can possibly get that will take care and treat my properties as if it's their own....I really strive to get tenants that treat the property with respect and really care about it VS. just a tenant who treats it as a rental and has no pride of ownership...Keeping the property in great shape clean, maintaining it, Etc. is worth more than a few extra bucks a month in rent.This really helps when it comes to the appreciation factor.

I've done that before and it just turns into a maintenance issue because somebody has to maintain that big property and cut the grass and keeping it looking good.

They were there for 7 years, so if your previous PM didn't maintain the property, your list of repairs through deferred maintenance will be longer than normal.

The problem properties for me are the frame structures that weren't maintained.

I will maintain XYZ% of the LLC and sell off portions of it to them.

You can also share that "the state requires the landlord to maintain the septic tank as part of general duties.