My strategy consists of buying with VA, occupy, IRRRL (free VA loan) and repeat.

Any of these are potential red flags.Don't allow financing or a finance contingency (it can be a good indication they are selling above market value)Don't allow for your own independent property inspectionAre not realistic with their pro forma's (i.e. they don't include vacancy or maintenance projections or use unrealistically low vacancy factors)Require you to pay for any renovation upfrontSell only in cheap. low end neighborhoodsDon't accurately represent the neighborhood/property classificationDon't have consistent rehab standards for all propertiesDon't provide a scope of work for the propertyCan't provide references of repeat investorsRequire you to close before a tenant is in place

While that all makes sense I cant seem to find a consistent answer for an online education and testing option.   

Generally you lose the friendship when things go bad on the rental aspect. 

One thing I can say about these folks: they pay the rent consistently; never had a missed payment.

Because of my other business consuming my time I have not been very consistent with keeping up to date with it all.

We want to add a garage to a 4plex but the city has re-zoned the lot to SFR use and says our property is legal non conforming so we are not able to expand.i think a garage is an accessory that is consistent with accessory's for a house,  so it should be OK to my thinking, Is there a tact full way to approach the city with this?

This is an awful lot of equity to tie up in a property that's not consistent with your strategy and won't cash flow well.

Eventually, he  just stopped replying to my calls/text/emails.For the money aspect, I was up front with all of them saying money was not an issue and I was willing to pay to get it straightened out legally. 

In my book, there are four rules to (real estate) success:Overcome inertia to get in the game by take consistent productive actionDon't do things that could take you out of the game with a single bad moveDo things to extend and enhance your gameplay Create a system to get better, in some aspect, every dayYou've already demonstrated that you are all over Rule #1, so it's time to consider #2 and #3!