And as far as legal—an attorney becomes essential once you're ready to finalize terms with either an HML or private lender to make sure everything’s secure.Hope this helps!

Airbnb gives you the best bet at getting both. 

If you're not using Hard Money and the property won't qualify for conventional financing, then you'd probably need to locate private money or if you have friends with IRAs, they can be self-directed to invest in real estate.

Since you are doing new construction I would suggest making them private enough where guest have minimal interaction with each other.

Given your previous career, your goals, and wanting to diversify your investments, I'm wondering if you might find value in the PassivePockets community, it's a community with private forum dedicated to passive investing in syndications.

Some private lenders will step in and fund.

The Midwest is probably your best bet for a number of reasons.

This is in a town that has a very good Private College - Baylor University.

If discussing with someone in a forum and you all take it to private messages, that's a different story.

DSCR Cashout is your best bet!