Find Brandon's videos on YouTube for the "four square" method of analyzing homes and practice.

There are literally 1,000's of videos from hundreds of landlords going through it in these kinds of neighborhoods. 

First, as Tanner suggested, engage a general contractor to assess the property and provide a detailed rehab estimate.

Heres a time lapse video thus far on 1 location https://app.oxblue.com/open/is...

I guess it’s verte two years later than neverBased on my “research” that includes YouTube videos and chat GPT this is done via a trust, in which the lender is the beneficiary and the borrower is the trustor and the title company or lawyer is the trustee.

Pay for an inspector to go out and give you a full residential inspection and have your agent do a video walkthrough of the property. 

As a side note, these are individuals who have already completed a video interview with me and consented to paying for a background check for the position and provided references.

So my advice to anyone that would care to hear it is, do not buy a property based upon a video since a video will not exactly show you foundation issues, and other things that only being in person can help with.

For example, can I simply let a friend borrow $25k & get paid back with some interest or is there some reporting & rules involved before engaging in such practices?

I've already watched a few BreakIntoCRE videos, and they've been really insightful.