If it is someone you know you can give them a straight return as if its a loan - can provide a lower interest rate to provide upside - it really depends on the lender and what are they concerned with and what is their risk profile. 

An experienced investment team can provide invaluable assistance in finding, vetting, inspecting, renovating, and managing properties effectively in your chosen market.

I am glad you all provided a detailed explanation to help me understand.  

I would look FAR AND WIDE for someone to do an investment property HELOC -OR- go to a bunch of banks and CUs (including who you bank with now) to find someone to provide an unsecured (or secured if you have other collateral) LOC to get rid of the high int debt.

I can see how starting with a 4-plex could provide better returns and learning opportunities without an overwhelming jump in complexity.

While I do believe that some of the posters on BP are able to do a quality job self managing their portfolio of STR properties, they are spending a lot more time doing it than they’d like to admit.10 years ago in many markets STR provided outsized returns.  

The more time you spend talking about other options and try to build up the negatives, the less time you are spending on what you fell are the positives of your own idea.If you believe that you are onto a great idea using L2P option contracts and forming partnerships where someone else provides 100% of the money while you provide 100% of the real estate-related functions, then start it up and make it work.  

When you say they were incompetent can you provide more feedback for novice investors. 

Guests provide revenue and guest provide Reviews. 

But perhaps you would be better served helping a local experienced investor find deals and ask them to show you exactly how they analyze deals, what's good vs bad, how do they finance (debt vs equity) etc etc and understand their business model that has a proven track record by providing value to them.