My friend wants to include me in on this so we can both achieve financial freedom together.The plan currently is to take out a personal loan together for the $20,000, put in $5,000-10,000 worth of work into the property to make it livable as soon as possible, move into the property ourselves so we don't have to pay rent anymore, and then refinance as soon as possible.

@Justin Reyes Let me ask you this...If you owned a marketable piece of real estate and no longer cared to own the property what would you rather do: (a) Sell the property, pay off your mortgage and move on to other opportunities; or(b) Sell the property without paying off the loan,  remain liable for the loan as the note signer and trust the buyer will continue to make payments on that loan, and if they don't your personal credit is damaged? 

Condo Heloc could be difficult with recently being listed for sale..check in with @Joseph Chiofalo he's a South FLA based lender and they have DSCR and alternative income bank statement second position programs..they also do mixed use and 5+ units commercial lending. 

We are going to check out the area in person this week.We are thinking if number works out it will be still good investment.  

I have about $300 on my credit cards (just finally paid them off for the most part, and have about $20,000 limit).My cash on hand is relatively light, but what my plan was was to find some single family homes in the north Detroit area (currently anywhere from $40-$60k and put about $15-20k tops into any repairs or fixes (not looking for total rehabs, mostly something I can do some small repairs here and there and paint, personally I am knowledgeable about renovating up until complex electric and plumbing).

It's hot and muggy during the summer and I personally wish it had snow more than once every 5-7 years.

I am happy to make a personal introduction if interested, DM me.

I've personally met a lot of hard money lenders at investor meet ups as well.Best of luck on your first property!

Cons: Property 1 has strong expected IRROption 2) Sell property 1 to pay off a construction loan on property 5 and purchase new SFR -- Pros: Improves cash flow by $1,000 / month, Adds $40k cash to bank account (after $30k loan repayment and $40k SFR purchase). 

Perhaps you can arbitrate, but you will want to be careful getting too involved in a personal dispute.