To entice the tenants to say, I wrote a formal letter acknowledging the difficult times and gave a promise to hold rents constant for the whole year - - that was effective - - no new move-outs.For the vacancies I did have (2), I took my time to find a Good Tenant vs just any tenant.

For the remainder of your income not used in expenses, emergency fund, or retirement accounts, you'll want to invest within an individual or joint (if married) taxable account.

The project, owned jointly by Mobil, Shell and Imperial Oil (a Canadian subsidiary of Exxon), went online in 1999; it is expected to close in 2017.Source-http://graphics.latimes.com/oil-operations/

A hard money lender is a private lending company that charges points and may get their funds from investors.”Nevertheless, the lending companies which many real estate investors refer to as “hard money lenders” will frequently refer to themselves as a “private lender” or a “private money lender.”Several private lending companies I deal with do not like to be associated with the term “hard money” because they feel it has a bad connotation and makes them seem unethical or having extremely high pricing.But here are some of the benefits of doing business with a private lending company instead of an individual: More Qualified, More Consistent, never runs out of money, Reputation, Legal Compliance, Easy to Find, Better Pricing.There are some benefits to borrowing from an individual investor: May offer higher leverage, may consider a joint venture or equity position, several don’t charge points (origination fees).

You're correct, this is legal and the method is talked about constantly when referring to house hacking.

Experienced investors are constantly improving their skills, numerical tools, and other resources to find the right deals in the real estate investment market.

You could also create just a single member LLC and hold your share of the properties in the LLC so that you could combine both your 50% share of the jointly owned ones plus your solo-owned properties, and then you would need to change title to the jointly-owned ones to be owned 50% by your LLC and 50% by your partner however he decides to hold it.You probably should have already been filing taxes in South Carolina if you haven't been already as a nonresident on the income earned from your South Carolina based real property (individual income taxes). 

If you don't have to drive by hookers or the back of trashy commercial joints, then don't go that way. :)

I am planning to sell a contiguous group of commercial properties consisting of retail, office, residential and land in an urban setting. All the properties are zoned C1/C3. It's a small--current value is $2.5-ish. It...

You could, theoretically, apply for a joint mortgage with one or two other people, and thus have their credit and income factored into your mortgage approval.