She knows we still have plans to improve the landscaping, tear down a dilapidated garage, pour a new driveway, carport and patio; she is willing wait for the finished product and is super excited to be settled into her new home.

Looking to learn more and improve my business, maybe help new people along the way.  

You can structure it as a joint venture where they provide the capital and you manage the project end to end.

I'd suggest meeting with a lender now for 2 reasons.  1) You may be ready to go sooner than you thought.2) If you are not quite ready yet, they may be able to point out other things that you can work on along side of improving your credit.  

I don't recommend buying any deals FROM them (because they will already be taking the cream off the supposed future profit), but maybe a Joint Venture type of arrangement? 

So it tough to nogotiate when they walk or improve product quality when there is no problem.   

I try to improve something every vacancy.  

I know for sure once you alert them they may want to come in and do walk through of the entire property to see what kind of improvements were made over the years that weren't taken into consideration.

The opportunity to sell and improve the quality of my portfolio had begun to outweigh the option of holding any longer.

Ideally we'd like the investor to get his money back + interest in 3-6 months and be able to leverage any tax breaks from the depreciation and repair (not improvements) BUT we don't want him to have his name on the deed or anything.