Break up with the folks who you're not interested in using so that they know you're not in the mix anymore.

The thing now is that the banks break up each individual piece of the job where before you could do a roof, kitchen, windows, and now they may only offer the roof and fascia because they want the work spread out and don't want any one aspect of the entire job padded.  

We break up, she moves out with my son, and I am left by myself in this big 3 bedroom house.

They are nice because they break up the standard order size.

Going the "traditional" way of using the private investors I would break up these 17 properties into 4 chunks and buy them one at a time for "cash" and then get them refinanced...paying off my investors...and then buy the next batch until we had purchased all 17 over the course of 9 months or so.When I look at this though...it seems like my transaction costs will be much higher doing so many separate transactions (basically 17 separate acquisitions and then 4 blanket refinances with my credit union)Instead if I can convince my private lenders to put their money into a new LLC set up to specifically purchase these 17 properties.

Do a search or look through any of my many posts in the past on this topic.Essentially, you need to NOT rely on others (like contractors or inspectors) to perform this task, you need to know how to do it and after practicing many many times and using the right tools, you can eventually do it in your head in 15-30 minutes while walking through the property.You need a spreadsheet (several free downloadable ones on the BP file place at the bottom of any thread page), fill in your local numbers for material and labor costs for each line item and then break up the home into sections.

So whoever is the primary host will get to keep the listing if we "break up" , correct?

There was no way we were going to have a pool in a rental property (insurance nightmare), so we got a pool remover to break up the pool, fill it in, and cover the backyard with beautiful sod.

Not fair to anyone involved.When they break up, one is stuck trying to come up with rent, and it's a mess deciding who gets to stay. 

A lot of the time they are very happy to get a call to break up the monotony.This can be a very complicated area so make sure you understand it thoroughly.