Im a firm believer in purchasing rentals.

Start their own consultancy (either recruiting agency since they are the top recruiter like I did, or if they were pentesting for different clients like banks, fortune 500, etc, they start their own pentesting consultancy/firm). 

suggest you find a different attorney firm to work with...they'll take a cut, but worth it.

Even the CEO's younger brother decided not to hang around - whatever his reasons are - it's too late for him unless he returned all the money he took out and fully disclosed  every illegal act he has personal knowledge of BEFORE the SEC/FBI show up at his door.I referred the "fronter" to a whistleblower law firm, but who knows if he followed up.

You could even try reaching out directly to local agents or small real estate firms.

Are there any creative things that could be done to get to my goals or from your standpoint,  or is it pretty well a firm "not gonna fly" type scenario? 

@Emily Gowen These types of questions are precisely the focus of my firm.

My firm did launch a no-load DST last Fall and we (almost) filled it up quickly.

True, I am 100% with you on that.The point here is, when you analyze, you do based on what you know now (what is known as a fact today) and on what is highly likely to happened (again from today) and to accept the fact that things might change tommrow.Life happened every day, that’s why  we need to stay firm with our direction but flexible with our approach.having lived through the HORRORS of those years fully engrossed in the industry almost nationwide... it was regional on who did well and who had troubles.. no question well positioned landlords in Portland for instance no issue.. 

I would invest in Sunrise Capital, but I didn't get the impression that they would accept $50K as an initial investment, which I always like to do to try out a new firm (for me) and to diversify geography and risk.