Study the market.

If your wife is inheriting multi family properties in multiple countries my advice would be to study up the best you can on property management so that when the time comes you have the knowledge and tools to hire a quality property manager for those properties.

I am a student at Boston University studying Mathematical Finance.

Unless the floodplain study for this area is new this is not something that has just happened recently.

I've studied doing this to do on my own more than anything though, not just JV. 

But if you have a solid plan, most likely a feasibility study, you ought to succeed in finding the funds.  

It takes leg work, studying, time, (and maybe a handful of lessons learned) before you will have the POTENTIAL for success.Cheers,Chris

I started studying for my CA Real Estate Salesperson license as I initially thought that was all I needed.

As to any insight to offer for what it sounds like you'd be interested in doing, I do have one case study that might be of interest to you.

Study the market, get a local group together, and begin small.