Theyre out there, but they are largely impractical and not viable except in the most profitable deals.

When you charge under market rent, the IRS deems that you do not have a profit motive and, therefore, disallows all rental expenses. 

We built a single family home version of a 2 bed 1 bath with surface parking at cost with no profit all in with land for 175k in newark ohio, a suburb of columbus ohio. when we push that to 3 units and closer to the city for our build to rent model the numbers go way better. a 30k slab for a single family home is 30k, a 30k slab for a triplex is 10k a door. we designed a 2 bed 1 bath design at 668 sq ft and it's very good layout even I would live there, but I would never build anything that small again. there's no economies of scale. you need density and shared lines, resources, shared roof shared slab, shared windows, etc the cost goes way down.

I've found other investment strategies to be far more profitable and far less demanding to operate. 

They won't always be upfront about this with you but if know they're selling because they want to retire, that opens you up to different options vs if they're an investor just selling for profit.

Sounds like you found a profitable niche 

We agreed to split the profits 50/50 on every deal.

I gave them $50k and they lent it out to flippers to make a profit and paid me interest on it. 

Without standardized processes in place, costs can rise quickly, timelines can stretch, and profits can dwindle.- Standardized Renovation Models: Establishing a clear scope of work for different property types can help manage costs and reduce unnecessary decisions.

Regarding all of that work, is there anything you think could be automated that would either free up your time to close on deals faster or help you profit more on a deal?