However, I discovered a rehab of a downtown building with a residence upstairs that they were able to use a special spray foam that had a 4 hour burn through.

When you said you had almost no cash or equity and were asking about putting a CA tenant in a place that you know has roaches, I thought you were a noob about to get burned. 

I've been a licensed contractor for 48+ years, do several million dollars in business every year and still get burned and still beat myself up for making mistakes  Don't worry.

That burns my buns with illegals are asking for $25 per hour, tax free, and that is more than most legal Americans are earning when working at restaurants, or for Costco, Sams Club,  UPS, Amazon, etc.The problem I am having is my own employees do jobs for a percent, or commission and they were satisfied when them earned $1,000 to $1,200 per week.

I'd much rather have a buyer's agent do their job and get their portion of the commission.But that aside, it burns me to see that without any disclosure up front you were put in a situation in which a buyer's agent was supposedly assigned to you.

If your friend is brand new to the game, they probably did get lucky, because usually it's so easy to get burned at that price range - there's so much that can go wrong.

It’s because I’m tired of burning the candlestick at both ends and not having any time with family.

You need to write down a business model to adhere to, or burn it into your brain.

BRRR is great but if you burn through operating funds you won't be expanding, which leads to needing to know your full goals.  

I have a Gatlinburg cabin that burned to the ground 4 years ago.