Only other initial question I'll leave here is that I'm looking for REI mentors and hope to find a few on BP willing to share a few gold nuggets to those willing to slog it out in the mines the smart or hard way.

Section 8 refers to a voucher that some people use to pay for their housing.

Already has some electric and plumbing hooked up.  

Especially as you start to get a little further outside of downtown.Plenty of opportunity to get equity with the housing stock being so old and a lot of properties needing to be rehabbed.

I'm have been asked to enter into a partnership with an experienced investor, and I'm not sure how to or the best way to structure a partnership.

I have not heard of one of those, but am gearing up to buy my second house and could possibly use some sort of loan program like that!  

Limiting defects up to a certain dollar amount may be a happy medium here...   

He tells you to pay him $5,000 (or much more) to learn all the "secrets" that made him wealth, but then he doesn't tell you that his "secret" was to increase earnings, reduce expenses, save up and invest.

I thought you were building to sell.

Most mortgage companies will not call loan due if payments are current but you do run that risk and need to be prepared to payoff or refi at a moments notice.