And I like the idea of asking for the property vacant, would allow for the seller to do the cash for keys and deal with that stress rather than do it myself.

I can't stress this enough.

I can't stress enough how important it will be to find a great, trustworthy property manager as an out of state investor.

We're looking into house hacking as a way to start, but we fear it might be too slow of a burn starting at age 29 that might not pay off in the end, especially since we don't want to live in a duplex forever...we have to get out of it somewhere, somehow.At $3600/year, it sounds totally unfeasible to do anything beyond our brokerage $500/month investment as any sort of savings for anything, whether benefitting the house or possible future expenditures and this has been bothering my mind for awhile now and created a lot of stress involved with the house. 

Yes there is sales cost and stress but you are in it for the long haul.

I found a link for the State of Pennsylvania Insurance Department here File a Complaint (pa.gov)When filing the Complaint, try not to use terms like "incompetent" or "liars" etc.Just give them the facts and stress that failing to put you into title etc. was not rightandtell them you want to know why this happened and tell them you want the department to make sure it doesn't happen again.Good luck. 

good deals always get funded so don’t stress.

She finds this stressful and inconvenient.  

I feel like this will cause stress and shifting on the house frame as the only thing that it is secured by is the foundation.

You have to be comfortable making decisions, managing people, and dealing with a high level of stress.