That being said, there won't be any down payment required since you have equity (you're guessing ~55,000 but I wasn't sure if you were meaning the property is ballpark worth ~$175,000, or more than that). 

If you didn’t think $6k was worth it you might find it’s under $5k.

To answer your title directly, house hacking is entirely worth it and if you're willing to be a landlord it's 100% the best springboard to financial independence.

Also, the whole point of hiring a PM is to handle tenant, maintenance, and rent collection, so if your partner isn’t actively managing but just supervising the PM, IMO not worth having a two people essentially looking over the same tasks.Contributing financially for one person and the other having no financial stake raises decision making questions, such as when to sell, how profits will be distributed, etc.

.: I haven't passed this past legal review so for what its worth: Part of my standard requirements for everyone include income is at least 3X rent, minimum credit score, say 640, Clean record and no evictions as well as deposit is paid in full at signing of lease and 1st month rent is paid in full prior to handing over the keys.

Texas tends to favor landlords in these cases, but follow the legal process exactly—any misstep could delay things.As for protecting against retaliation or property damage, installing security cameras (if you haven’t already) to monitor common areas might be worth it.

For me at least, doubling my profit is well worth the extra two months of expenses on the market.

I have an interior design background and can make this property really cute, but is it worth it?

You don’t need to be someone that owns $100M worth of real estate unless that’s really your goal. 

My attorney that handles SEC registration told me something along the lines of $1.5-2M as a minimum if I remember correctly.