Don't place too much emphasis on "protected categories".

You might want to do the learning before you do the losing and BiggerPockets.com/starthere is a great jumping off point.

Seasoned flippers or investors tend to put bids on properties like this knowing that 1 or 2 will lose money for every 10 deals they do. 

And now that I've learned more about real estate investing, I've realized that when I add the HOA ($430), property tax ($300), insurance ($50) and property management ($70), with rents around $1350, the best case scenario is a property that cash flows $500/mo after 20 more years of losing money on the property when the property is free and clear.  

Paid-off houses is just moving assets from higher risk (and thus higher reward, i.e. you have a leveraged house which frees up cash to buy another house, increasing your return but also adding some risk) to lower risk (if the place goes vacant for a year, you won't lose it to foreclosure, for example).

Seems like we would have at least a year or two of good rents before Nashville loses its cool factor (but who knows).

You win some and you lose some with the counties.  

To the extent that they're going to lose the property to a sheriff auction.

They don't need many jobs to put food on the table, so losing "difficult" customers like you is no big deal. 

Want to lose a friend get in business with them.If everybody puts in 25%, and I was in that partnership, I'd want 25% share of income and capital gains.And work on the properties should be hired out not done by a partner like your slef.Why do you need the partners?