Honestly this is why the govt needs to change the criteria for an accredited investorIt has not changed the amounts in like 40 years and many people making $250k a year cannot afford to lose $50 or $100k which is happening now as many use the “accredited investor” as a status but the only status is you can lose $ and govt doesn’t care.Besides that the jobs act introduced crowdfunding and regulation a+ that allows people to invest hundreds or thousands of dollars at a time not $50k and accepts non accredited.  

If you can do conventional you do not have this test (but talk to a lender to be sure and get your specific situation). 

.- Married couples filing jointly can exclude up to $500,000 of capital gains.Conditions for Exclusion:- Ownership and Use Test: You must have owned the property and lived in it as your primary residence for at least two out of the last five years before the sale.- Frequency: You cannot have excluded the gain from the sale of another home in the two years before the sale of this property.For a duplex where you occupy one unit and rent out the other, the rules are slightly different:- Owner-Occupied Unit: The portion of the property you lived in qualifies for the exclusion, provided you meet the ownership and use test.- Rental Unit: The portion of the property that was rented out does not qualify for the full exclusion but can benefit from partial exclusion based on the proportion of time you lived in the property.

Thanks in advance You can only pay for stuff that actually accepts CCs.

You'll want to test the paint surfaces for lead.  

Your thought process on the contractor providing quotes to possibly "win" a job may seem correct on surface level as a lot of businesses offer "free-mium" products - but ultimately time is money, especially in real estate where good contractors are in high demand and could better spend their time finishing a project before accepting the next one. 

As for your partner, they need to also have passed the "use test" of 24 months out of 5 years above.

Can I say for example, "rented out x unit this month", or do I need to go over each day and list all of the times I answered messages, fielded calls, accepted tenants, did the lease, etc?

Accountants are in such demand, that the best are not even accepting clients half the time.The other problem I see often with accountants on here is that they specialize in larger investors, and have really high prices when you as a smaller investor do not need all the bells and whistles.Another thing I see is folks thinking they need to have a tax professional in their state.

I would choose Candidate #2 providing you have acceptable verification of their income - bank statements that multiply out to what the past couple years tax returns indicate on the business.