I am very excited to get a move on buying but I am loosing my mind trying to figure out where....  

Lower list prices attract bidding wars.I'm homeless now, loosely living out of my car, and back to spending too much.

I'd like to establish a loosely organized network of buyers who share deals, perhaps with a $2k referral fee, to make sure we're never turning down a good one

You should assume you'll loose some tenants but if you do your improvements the right way you'll probably get better tenants. 

HECM (Home Equity Conversion Mortgage - aka reverse mortgages) have Fannie and Freddie (and others) as the investors/sellers but are bound by strict HUD rules during the sale, particularly during the first 180 days the property is listed.

If you don't find a buyer by a certain period, do you loose your deposit?  

Another downside is you loose on the advantages, of the Federal Tax Code, by not closing in the name of a LLC.

He is energetic and loves the art of the deal so he is born to wheel and deal.I recently turned him loose on a deal of mine that had gone cold.

I derived this number with a cap expense sheet that I bound on BP and replacing the numbers with my expected costs (higher than elsewhere) and my experienced life span (My experienced life range varied significantly from other projections: for example sliding aluminum windows I experienced a shorter life than the work sheet, similar for HVACs. 

There are, like, 200 back episodes so there's bound to be one that speaks to your situation and will offer insight.