You can purchase a multi family home with your entitlement, live in one and rent out the others  with 100% financing.That should be your preferred method of financing for the least amount of money out of pocket.  

I know their strong and weak points as structures.

My now wife (then girlfriend of only one year) jumped right in with me and we closed off a back area that collapsed, removed that from the structure, closed off the upstairs, and made the lower livable.

I obviously don't have enough shareholders to for a Reit but something similar on a much smaller scale is what I would like to do.What is the best way to structure and go about this? 

Roof, HVAC, structural integrity, windows, ect.

Seems to keep valuations pretty fair or you can agree on another valuation method.

The place was so bad the floors were actually sloped in, so I had to deal with structure issues as well as termites.

I have been looking forward to seeing him in regards to structuring my paperwork and agreements.

we discovered that there is a major structural issue that was identified in 2009 and has not yet been fixed. 

I just want to understand realistic comparison of reg sale vs reasonable and maybe more attractive seller financing structuring taking into account future short/intermediate term interest rate trends and Time value of money (that I am a fan of learning more).As a side note, being a health care professional I am amazed and always puzzled by financing and real estate.