More specifics on apartment syndication

[Ryan McGlasson]

Recently since listening to an older biggerpockets podcast on a member who would syndicate large apartment buildings and any other deals they wanted to purchase I was really intrigued by the idea. A large reason because of the ability to start in real estate without any of your own money really. Which is essential because I do not have the net worth or capital needed for loans or investing money. So upon listening to this podcast and a few others I have become extremely interested in the niche. But in my quest for knowledge I gain many more questions! While I do have a basic understanding of how syndication is performed, I am not understanding key details that I do not seem to be able to find the answers to on the forum or the internet so I wanted to ask here for those who are more experienced, or have any experience at all or knowledge to share.

As a sponsor I am not putting money in the deal just putting it together and making the many moving parts work together. I hear often that it is a wise idea and completely possible to start in real estate in multifamily with a 16+ unit as a first investment because the bigger and more units the less of a risk, which I agree with. What I do not understand is how as a sponsor I can get any lender to loan me the rest of the cash. My understanding is to gain a non-recourse loan, the loan minimum would need to be $1,000,000.If this is the case then the downpayment at minimum would need to be over 250k for a 20% downpayment? Or is it 25%? Do i need to include the repair fee and closing cost with the downpayment? 

I have good credit but no liquidity, no 6-9 month reserves for a property that size and no net worth so to my knowledge a lender will never lend me anything no matter how good a deal correct?  Do letters of intent from an investor really do anything to negate not having those requirements? 

The way I have read around this is to have the limited partner be the one to sign on the loan in exchange for more equity. If this is a solution, then how does this change the sponsor-limited partner relationship? If the sponsor is the one who was supposed to sign for the loan but they cannot how does the contract still come together as me being a sponsor? Would they just split the title with the partners name on the mortgage?   Generally I know you wouldn't want to have an investor sign anything like that but this is a family investor who is willing, but still I would want a method to avoid that and have it signed to me if possible and the limited partners both on non-recourse atleast but then it leads back to the issue of how would I ever realistically get bank funding? Should it be avoided completely and look into hard money loans?   

Advice is appreciated and I thank you in advance. Just need a little nudge in the right direction and I am off.