The part about getting out of your own way is so true, especially with managing subcontractors.

What are your current goals or challenges in real estate?

It isn't really any harder to drive a stick, just different, but for people who never learned it seems very challenging.

An eviction will make it challenging for her ever to find a quality rental in low vacancy areas.  

Challenges?

The same is true if you would want to sell it at some point. 

The challenge for me will be to attempt to mirror this type of financing approach to Southern Calif. real estate. 

Sidenote: if borrower is paying P&I and investors receiving interest only it gets more challenging as you are receiving dribs and drabs of principal back every month which is impossible to deploy but you are still paying investor interest on it. yup drag on the fund will drag you down.

True that. 99% of people will stay on the internet, analyzing deals and doing research but when the time comes to pull the trigger on a deal they'll do absolutely nothing. 

There are of course exceptions, but so long as you pay your taxes, the US government won't challenge you or your business, so long as it's legal and it complies with the United States law.So the immediate answer is yes, you can do.