It would be much better spent on marketing or skin in the game on a loan!

I'm sure that will help you have the thick skin you need to be successful.

Again, other might feel differently here.b) Skin in the game: as a conservative investor, I understand that the dirty secret of industries that the waterfall compensation is in the line with me and incentivizes sponsors to take more risk.

, use the 10k as "skin in the game" with the partner, and do the deal with YOU as the buying agent when you get in, manage the renovations/contractors to earn your slice of the profit, and be the listing agent when you get out (maybe even at 2% to make your partner happy).

Now are there other ways to "skin the cat" that I haven't mentioned, absolutely so again just my 2 cents on a very general level.

A little thing called "skin in the game" is a powerful tool to vet out deals and to not get overextended. 

there are many ways to skin this cat.Leverage and team is important as @David Thompson was mentioning.I will give you another one to think about.what I did was raise some friends and my own cash and got 4 to 1 leverage for a HM lending lines of credit from banks.. we started with 1 million in capital which got us a 4 million dollar loan.. so had 5 million to lend out.. paying bank 1 point and 6%  and lending at 15 to 20% apr and making the delta.we ran that up to 35 million.. and that took about 14 people to run..

And that's a good thing, cash or skin in the deal make the borrower go in with their eyes more open to the down falls of the deal as well.

Why do banks want you to put "skin in the game"? 

I don't think anyone would want to touch that even with the money down as it really is not a lot of skin in the game and it a higher risk deal.