I have found a few run-down vacant homes; the owners owe a few years in taxes. could i offer to pay the taxes for them in exchange of the house? would that be a different type of contract from the typical wholesale?

For the passive investment you described, UBIT would generally not apply based on equity in an active trade or business, though you should ask the syndicator about whether the investment is likely to generate UDFI for an IRA.

I am an  HVAC Technician by trade.

I am in no mood to punish anyone, but if tenants know their behavior may have consequences, perhaps they will think twice before ditching the lease.

You could hire different professional trades and pay them for their time to inspect the property.

Since then i have also realised that cryptocurrencies and stocks can be traded with the help of technical analysis.

Still working on building my bench of trades, so that I can have dependable people running the day to day operations.

The thought was that we should be able to cut him a 1099 at the end of the year for the revenue he will be bringing in, but neither my wife (an accountant by trade) or myself (software developer) have had experience with this before and don't want to get stuck not being able to expense all of these costs.Please advise, and thanks in advance!

I know I'm trading them the data in exchange.

However, you may find it difficult to qualify as a real estate professional with a full time W-2 job...unless your spouse is an RE professional...or you have equity ownership in your W-2 job and it is involved in a real property trade or business.If this is anything more than a hypothetical I encourage you to discuss with your CPA/EA.