Those people could be private money investors, or investors that can bring you deals! 

I mean, if I'm paying that much money, I'm hoping for deal on a house.

I am of the scale that I can probably deal with these issues by throwing money at the various problems that will arise.

Not to say young syndicators can't be great in the business, but I will let someone else prove the thesis with their money first.And to be clear, I don't think experience only comes from being the GP in deals.  

I'm particularly interested in the life that real estate investing can provide for my family.Outside of real estate, I enjoy hard work, learning new skills that will help me in my journey to success, and of course spending quality time with my beautiful daughters.I am Excited to learn and connect with you all!

I pay him money but then he disappears for a week at a time and won’t return my calls.

It will save you a lot of time and money.

We work with a ton of NYC investors who come Upstate to invest where their money goes much futher. 

these are facts and circumstance cases.. did the contract have a mandatory mediation then arbitration clause or do you have to go straight to the court system.either way if seller does not cooperate your going to spend some months flushing this out.

Real Estate is definitely not just a "numbers analysis" and you are definitely thinking about things the right way - but I think a good next step for you would be to spend some time putting a lot of this stuff into a (very) basic financial model/spreadsheets mapping out all the potential costs and estimates on effect (effect on value, on exit, different scenarios) - I think getting started with that framework should help with these decisions immensely