In any relationship, business or personal setting expectations up front can make the difference between success and failure.

Personally I work with one contractor on all my projects and he goes with me on my first walk through.

@Caitlin Logue A smart person will learn from their mistakes, a wise person will learn from others mistakes.

I personally have 6 in the area but I bought before it got crazy.

You can also get a personal loan up to $50K which typically is to pay off credit cards debts, do renovations etc, but it can also be used as a down payment.

A month later now, they are insisting I come and see the place in person and see "how well it turned out".

Simplify tax filings as there is no need to do all the proportional calculations. 

See here a couple diagrams to help you in this quest:Asset Protection Decision Diagram - to help assess the need for asset protection, and what to implement : https://www.biggerpockets.com/files/user/CosIorg/file/asset-protection-decision-diagramAsset Protection Onion Diagram - what, when and at what cost one should implement in terms of asset protection - https://www.biggerpockets.com/files/user/CosIorg/file/asset-protection-onion-diagram-v2

You can get personal references but nobody gives you a bad personal references.

Should I be raising rent with the addition of another person on the lease?