Since I will now be a local landlord of 4 doors I wanted to take over management myself - self manage to save money and have more control.I will use Zillow and FB marketplace to advertise vacancies.

Does anybody have any ideas?

Do you think the sellers had any idea this was the actual cause of the problem?

In the 40% tax bracket this reduction in taxable income could save you around $2,000 in taxes per year, which would add $2,000 to your net worth.

and @Jay Hinrichs's user stats, they are contributors to this amazing community, save your money, you will learn so much more from biggerpockets, youtube, etc. than you ever will from a paid course. 

So you're self-managing to save money, but you don't have systems in place to actually manage the property?

My loan officer left a message the next day and said we could not use the HELOC for the whole down payment and that we needed to show we are using some of our savings - he said he would be in trouble with the underwriter.

Every few years this will get talked about and so I thought it would be a good idea for us to cover this right here and now.

I like the TIC idea, although I would want to see my partners' Op Agreement to be sure.  

I love the idea of taking something that looks horrible and turning it into something beautiful.