From my observations of successful investors (those with 100+ units and 20+ years in the game), there seem to be two camps: those who are pro-partnership and those who avoid them.

To me, you'll get a similar (if not slightly better) rate than hard money and you'll also avoid paying points for the hard money.

If a home is titled in a trust (or an LLC), the trust or LLC should be added as an additional insured to avoid potential disputes during a claim.To confirm, we reached out to an insurance carrier, who clarified:“A carrier can potentially deny a claim if the home is titled in a trust or LLC but the insurance policy is under the individual homeowner's name.

If you are having a lot of interest and you are trying to avoid multiple showings that take up too much of your time.

You can also try creative financing like seller financing or taking over a seller’s mortgage to avoid big upfront costs.

Taxes, costs, eviction complexity, etc are going to be a much bigger factor in your success than anything else.

While each person has their own perceptions of a rough part of town, in my experiences, I do avoid them.  

I heard that if you move the personal mortgages to an LLC they could get called and we would want to avoid that3.

Avoid PMI and then go to a local credit union and get a heloc after closing to gift the money back.Have this as a tool in your tool belt but pursue use of the 3.5% FHA, knowing that you will be at a competitive disadvantage if you are competing with non FHA buyers, then you can call in the favor from your gift person.Just know that if someone gifts you down payment money, your bank will require them to sign a letter stating that it is in fact a gift that doesn’t need to be paid back.

Add another $300 or so for taxes and insurance and you're at $2465 PITI.