Could you work half as much and still make the same money? 

But even to this day the money is always the winner not me.. thats how you raise significant capital ..

They would be putting in some money and their service as sweat equity, and we would be putting up money and my wife’s services. 

Quote from @Chris Pontello: Hi Chris,Correct me if I'm wrong as I'm still learning creative financing solutions, but paying them some money would be if I could take over the loan.

That’s great advice Taz, I’m currently working on saving enough money to get started, house hacking is hard for me at the moment because I just bought a house 2 years ago, I would have to sell my house(which is in a great neighborhood great location) and use that money to fund the duplex which isn’t totally out of the question, I would like to keep the house if possible but also would like to get real estate investing more.

We will see.Good news....they haven't asked us for any more money....yet. 

Quote from @Paul Whitehurst: Many will tell you to borrow money from Property A to purchase Property B, but that's known as over-leveraging and not recommended for a newer investor.

Collect properties instead of money.

You don't want to get a call 3 months into a project where you have lent money and hear the operator say that they ran out of money and need more money from you to finish the project or you will lose your investment.

And you probably need money for living expenses.