I would keep it simple and purchase them with conforming residential loans, so one property per loan. 

Plus I use Wave for bookkeeping...I like simple, I would have to get more than 10 places before I deviated from what I'm doing now.

I also suggest reading Getting the Money: The Simple System for Getting Private Money for Your Real Estate Deals by Susan Lassiter-Lyons, it is known as the bible for how to find, meet, and gain partnerships with private lenders.

Even if you just pay a simple consult fee or fee for handling a one time transaction for you.  

Simple economics of the situation, it takes more time to do a better inspection. 

This was simple and effective.

I'm just wondering if anyone has tips for finding a contractor that does well with simple/straightforward renovations.

While I know these numbers are not 100% accurate, I want to be consistent in the tracking method and use something that is simple (so I will actually do it every quarter).  

If you do something simple Security First title can record the mortgage terms for the owner -- I did that on one of my deals -- we spelled out the terms (interest and how id make payments and when they were due etc -- they recorded it for us)Wasnt super official - but worked and owner was fine with it.

Small, simple pitch roof could be anywhere from $4-8k, depending on several factors.