I've shared my thoughts and investing history with them and started getting positive feedback about wanting to partner in future deals.Here's my question:How do I make the leap from being equal equity partners to a syndication where I supply the deal and knowledge and the down payment is supplied by the partners?  

EDIT - your lender would supply a pre-approval or pre-qualification letter that usually will work as proof of funds, but you still need a financing contingency because the lender can still say "no" to funding a deal they don't like. 

the 2nd association it resonates is the highly consumption-driven society we live in. in my area (coastal, urban southern california) i'm surrounded by 2 distinct lifestyles. there's the majority: seems like 95% of the local population who are renters, driving luxury cars, sporting fancy clothes, jewelry, hairdos, etc but obviously living paycheck to paycheck as exemplified by hardly a day somebody or the other is spotted  getting their car repo'ed by a camera crew. the rarer are the landlords, who in this area seem to be of mostly asian demographics (chinese, koreans, japanese) who live obviously very frugally: old 80s model sedan, oldfashion business cloths, always eating simple meal from home, seemingly never splurging $$$ other than into expanding their portfolio), my observance is relatively very few landlords in the area own relatively huge portfolios, each.with the advent of these infomercials and the internet (ie, BP) more and more people want to get a 'piece of the REI pie' and more power to them. there does seem to be this dream of rags to riches and while its ok to dream, do most people actually expect their life to turn around like that, as portrayed in most of the infomercials or even in the everyday setting where the masses living paycheck to paycheck, are spending their last expendable dollars not on depositing into savings acount, but blowing $20 on scratchies etc. in summary, is my observation reminds me of my days when i worked on wall st and the 'ra trace' was so obvious with dime a dozen stock brokers makin 6fig salaries at some point but blowing it on recreational drugs apparently costing thousands of dollars a pop to the point the next week they are broke again and that $ wasnt invested but wasted.  

-Remove and cap a washing machine hook up in the 1st floor kitchen-Add a washer supply and drain to the new 1st floor laundry room -Install a new shower diverter with controls in the second floor shower-Add a supply and a drain for the second floor dish washer. 

I would pay market or above price for properties that were long term hold if I had an excess supply of capital.  

A house with a basement is fairly easy to do.Turn off and Drain the water from supply lines usually by cutting the pipes in a couple of strategic places in the basement.

I have only one quote so far, but it seems a LOT higher than what it should be: $1500 just to set the new tub in place, which will include re-routing of the water supply and drain lines. 

Can your supplies be put on a extended payment, no interest card at a Home Depot?   

In our area, rents are rising much faster than inflation because investors are taking advantage of the supply-demand being in their favor and raising rents for that reason, not so much because of a rise in taxes, insurance and operating costs.

This area is close to the sports stadium and consist of working class Philadelphians.