What are your “best practices” for pre-purchase due diligence for a rental property (single family/duplex/triplex/etc.)?

Hard to comment on anything without more information.Disclaimer: While I’m an attorney licensed to practice in PA, I’m not your attorney.

Is it ever good practice to raise listing price because you're comp sold for a higher price? 

It has been, through very careful and good management, rented up, and I think it is practically 100 percent rented.

If they haven't held rents in escrow, which is supposed to be standard practice in our industry, that explains a great deal, and it has thus likely denigrated into a Ponzi scheme. 

I'm putting into practice what I've learned from reading Long Distance Real Estate Investing by David Green.

We are both agents and it’s a good way to learn your market and get some practice with transactions while generating some income.

However, he also said practically speaking, as the courts are shut down, even if we had the right to remove we wouldn't have the power to do so until the courts reopened.Fortunately the tenant we had some concerns about left without issue and the turnover to a new tenant went without a hitch.

Networking is always a great practice and you never know who you might meet there and what good information they have to share.

I relocated to southern Texas for the effort.