Its risky but risk can be mitigated.In case anyone is wondering how this applies to real estate, my goal is to raise 100k for my dream of building a short to mid term rental on land I have already purchased in Northeastern IL in the style of FLW usonian homes.Cheers folks! 

It's mostly Class A properties, a few Class B.You may find the below copy & paste info useful in addressing your question:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

The FHA rules/regs (in particular the FHA self-sufficiency test) are applied the same across all markets, and I know for a fact that in rural communities across the country, and big cities that are not particularly desirable places to live, it's not a deal-breaker, I am not commenting on those areas. 

Meaning if one partner initially contributes 60% & the other contributes 40% then that would naturally give you a 60/40 split2.

It is what it is - if anything you lose a little and learn some lessons going forward to apply to your real estate investing career. 

Even without joining officially, I’ve found success by applying what I’ve learned from him.

I say this verbally before they apply.

They might also have thought that it's better for us to not have guests who want a super comfortable sofas as they might not write the best reviews in the future.What they probably ignore is that anything below 4.8 is in reality "not that good" and could actually be a negative for our business, given the very competitive nature of it.

Agree it is difficult to assess costs when they vary so much by location.Keep in mind that some turnovers are sickenly expensive, and that is just the nature of the business. 

I am confident price is your issue especially if you are deriving the price off a poor comp (smaller unit, etc) and then applying arbitrary adjustments.