I'm not sure if a joint venture would work as there are no local investors in my small rural community, so I just put it out there to see if anyone would reach out to talk to me about it.

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That's the "if you've lived in it for two of the last five years you can exclude $250K (single) or $500K (married filing joint) from capital gains tax" rule. 

My husband and I (together) jointly own our personal home in CA (we have a mortgage on it).My husband alone owns 1 vacation property in ME, 3 single family rentals in CA with mortgages, and 6 single-family rentals in IN.My IRA owns 2 single family rental properties in IN and 1 single-family rental property in OH.None of these properties are currently in a trust or LLC, they are just in our names and the name of my IRA.So far, I've talked to Geico and Foremost since we have dwelling insurance with them. 

Maybe we could discuss doing a couple of joint ventures.

They should be "joint and several"  on the lease which means EACH is responsible for the FULL amount of rent.  

Have each member contribute an equal amount of money as a joint venture to a single holding llc.

If they own the house jointly, they can each gift you the maximum amount.

I wonder if I can get some joint ventures there so that it will be a less risk for me to invest in a new place!!!

You could also form some kind of joint venture.