At that time, we put in hours and hours of legwork, found a property, and he flaked out, so we moved on it with a family member and made $100,000 in equity at closing.Recently, he's been asking me to do it again, so we started looking, found a great deal and presented it to him.

I have put in about 15 thousand in upgrades over the years(have all the paper work to prove).

Addresses would be easier to find then direct phone numbers, but even then a Nominee is put in place and resigns his position.

The solution was to put in two large cisterns where the water could collect and receded naturally...which I found out caused the basement of house on the end of the block to collapse in on itself. 

Don't sign any leases for people you did not put in there.  

You gotta put in some work no matter what you do, right??!

Most hard money lenders will provide you with a generalized POF letter for you to put in multiple bids.

It needs to be convenient and have minimal distractions.  

If you are up to put in the work on the project I see no reason not to go for it so long as you are capable of handling the tenant pool that lives in the area.

If you put in your own names not only do you liability risks but you'll also need to figure out how to document your partnership terms and handle accounting.Even if it's in your name or not, financing is still going to look at the investments with different terms if it's not your primary residence as far as I recall.