Property taxes can be found online and insurance is quoted over the phone.

Don't forget property taxes can be nearly 2X more for an investment property. 

They would need to refund all of those.2. 

Otherwise, look at the investment from a perspective of the basic annual cashflow and then determine if you would be able to gain any significant benefit from the depreciation or other tax benefits of the investment (speak to your CPA on that matter).  

I'd rather just take my lumps and pay the tax as I don't think tax rates are going down anytime soon so my capital gains tax on my profits are about as good as I'm ever going to be expected to pay. 

There are also tax considerations, such as depreciation and IRS Section 121 Exclusion.

They never bothered to set up my facebook ads and took that money also, I asked for a refund several times they denied it! 

Even if they provided us with a full refund.

There is also appreciation (gentrification area for this one), debt pay-down, and tax benefits of owning it outside of the cash-flow. 

Most often I'd hear people say:1) High taxes - but this can easily be reduced/eliminated by proper accounting and management.