Only way to back out is to lose $20k and change.

I've seen tons of potential investors lose money by trying to guess what the market is going to do. 

At this point I'm ok with preserving my assets and not losing anymore money and owning a few quaiity properties not acquiring more doors.

Or worse, if the project is losing money, do I get my $100,000 back or it's gone forever? 

The short-term view is you lose money. 

He doesn't even have an emergency fund.If he buys random duplexes with a 7% interest rate he's going to lose money on them and go backwards.

They don't lose and money since they never put anything up.

(Try to imagine a way that the property hurts someone bad enough to lose the property that isn’t at least partially your fault.

You need to determine how much asset protection you gain from the LLC versus how much you lose through either paying higher insurance premiums or taking the risk of not being covered when the time comes.

in that case the deed doesn't really matter but you will lose your title insurance unless the tranfer is a new title policy.