Perhaps if your partner was a general contractor or handyman type there may be some merit there to reduce costs / increase profitability.If your partner enjoys deal sourcing, a better move might be for him to become an agent - so he could legally collect commissions from finding deals and managing properties for multiple people. 

. 😉  Lack of investment capital (money) ought never be the obstacle because if the deal is right, the money will always appear.Then, you’ll need great data sources both for identifying opportunities and confirming the facts.

Is Real Estate Bees a legitimate and good source for leads? 

Unless you have some sort of subject matter expertise or access to an unfair advantage (cheap labor, ways to source off market deals, etc.), index funds are likely to provide an equal or better return with a MUCH lower hassle factor and more liquidity.

In October 2022, I got notified that my loan through Center Street Lending was cancelled (because there had been no activity on the loan)and that I would need to find another source of financing.

A simple source document review correlating the company's bank records of money in, investor principal owed out and total out for real estate currently owned would likely reveal a lot.

You can write the best guide but people want information for credible sources so you might want to clarify all of that or it might be an obstacle all along.3.

The data @Devin Conley posted is pretty solid from my experience (I do not know Devin nor how he sourced the data, just going by my own investing experience).  

Another nice bonus of using this as a funding source is no closing costs, big help on the front end.Obviously, if all goes relatively well, the plan would be to hold these properties as rentals and refi at some point down the road when rates on mortgages drops back down a bit, whenever that may be.

My humble advice to anyone attempting to do creative finance is:Creative finance is for experienced investors who have access to capital if anything goes wrong.Learn the lawsDon't use a contract "off the internet", laws vary by state and are also regulated on a federal levelLearn the financing techniques correctlyDon’t skip parts of the processDon’t ever do a “kitchen table” closingUse the proper deedAn attorney can help you with the legal work, but the rest you are on your ownYour guru will not bail you out“Investing” in someone else’s deal by providing a small 2nd loan so the “investor” can pay for “cash to the seller” and for “closing costs” so he can do the deal is a very bad planKnow what problems can ariseLearn the responses and solutions to problems before they are neededKnow everything there is to know about Title and what that meansKnow who a "protected class" individual isLearn the "back doors"Learn human natureUnderstand timelinesUnderstand regulation enforcement (some of these "mistakes" have a 10 year statue of limitations ( they can charge you 10 years AFTER you do the transaction) and carry hefty fines and possible imprisonmentThe court doesn't accept "I didn't know" for an answer"Know that the source of the lead plays a serious role in some states and federallyKnow how much of a "profit" pushes the boundaries to invite an investigationYou can be sued by the seller if you don’t do things correctlyYou are automatically at fault if an investigator or attorney or regulator gets involved.