I see it first hand how many hoops buyers now need to jump through to ensure that YES they can afford the property and that everything they stated is verified two or three times.

The issue lies in the fact that REI's (real estate investors) tend to claim and write off a lot when it comes to tax time so after they purchase a property they came their rental in a manner which actually makes DTI worst often times.A well formulated loan approval and mortgage plan can take a lot of risk out of investing especially if you're using BRRR - buy-renovate-refi-repeat with hard money, private money, are trying to cash out to obtain your seed capital again, and or are looking to ensure a smooth exit strategy.I always recommend multiple exit strategies to mitigate investor/borrower risk.Hope that helps.

They send an inspector out to ensure the work was done before allowing the next round of funding to be released.

Side note, yes definitely do your due diligence on the HOA to ensure they don't have specific bylaws regarding rental units.  

Ultimately though, barring litigation, an operating agreement cannot ensure that your partners are going to cooperate with you.

My question is how do I ensure that I get like THE FIRST offer in if this property goes past the OO limited period.  

To secure ourselves from the risk, we would ensure a detailed operating agreement is in place along with a personal guarantee from all of us, to ensure no one person gets left holding the bag if all hell breaks loose.Wanted to get a perspective from people who have done this before and things to keep in mind.

Ideally, we'd want the property to be sold & an escrow company handling the funds, to ensure we will get what was promised in our JV contracts.

I think you should assure her that her privacy will not be violated, but you will periodically do inspections with advance notice to ensure smoke alarms, etc. are working.  

I can only speak for us, but we don't cut corners on our rehabs, because we want to ensure lower maintenance costs.