I tend to be rather conservative and dont want to get into a spot that I lose my shirt in order to pay off the hard money lender.  

It requires less cash to get into the property, you have fewer holding costs because you've combined that with your own monthly housing costs, and if things go much slower than expected, as they always do, you aren't going to lose the property – unless you bought something you cannot afford.

But the key is to managing it successfully and this is where most people lose their shirtLong story short, we slowly removing non performing tenant and move in good tenants.

However, she doesn't lose anything by having the capability of selling houses should the opportunity arise.  

They have agreed to pay half the rent the first 2 months and pay an additional 50$ / month for the other 10 months to make up for my lose.  

Either he didn't vet the contractor well enough or he didn't manage the contractor well enough -- and many rehabbers don't like to admit it was their screw up that resulted in losing money.

The closing agent will give HUD your deposit, because they don't want to lose their ability to close HUD transactions.

But at least this way you run much less of a risk of losing the tenant until you are ready for turnover.

In the 2008 real estate pullback did the vacancy rate increase significantly from previous years because people were losing their jobs, or did more people begin to rent because they were losing their home ? 

All I'm saying is that based on speaking with those attorneys, these types of JV deals are best done with friends/family who aren't likely to sue you if something goes wrong and you lose money in the deal.