The other options you are playing with fire as using a HELOC that is paying interest is essentially buying with 100% financing.Having no skin in the game has always been a high risk strategy and people were able to get away with it the past few years due to the money supply and inflation but I would not use that as the measuring stick.

Is it better to wait for a tenant that is more on time with payments and leave the place vacant for now or accept whoever applies? 

<<I could alternatively leave it as an "open" loft, no powder room -so 1 bedroom/1bathroom + loft..... 

I see agents leaving the industry a lot right now. 

If they are not happy, they can leave at the end of the lease.  

It might be a value-add for prospective tenants to know there is a mechanism in place to leave early.

Are they tracking what IPs do after they leave their site?

And while someone paying a professional to do a detailed and relatively costly search may be able to ascertain your wealth status; a superficial search would probably leave the potential plaintiff believing you lacked the assets to make a lawsuit worthwhile. 

This vital in today’s environment.This is useful to see if contractors come to work on time and what time they leave.

I spent over a decade in multi-phasic residential development before leaving the "W2 league" of things.