I also plan on going slowly and then possibly finding more partners over several years.

I on the path of looking for my 1st investment properties and I am planning on going with conventional financing for the 1st property.I have some duplexes that I am interested in looking in, and they seem like decent deals and they're running for around $100,000.

And you get the benefit of having 50 past ones to catch up on. Go

Fortunately, I have a core group of friends who have made it really big in REI and plan on going to them and other friends/family for investment capital assistance and if those fail, then going to banks/hard money.

Otoh you don’t want to lose a good deal over it, I’d say it depends on your own experience level, how good the deal is and your relationship with your current agent and if you except to have an ongoing with him. 

He brought the bulk of the upfront investment and I bring the setup and ongoing management.

William (and others) Per your reply in the one post about the ongoing Roofing situation they have:Most roofing co's have Salesmen that, need to make money!

If a property is pending sale, but is also the subject of on going foreclosure proceedings, it could be a short sale, or it could just be an ordinary sale, depending on the value and mortgage balance (with values skyrocketing, there have been very few short sales in recent years). 

As you will soon find, there is no common definition of a turnkey property, and it can be very risky (and expensive) to make any assumptions.The ongoing management of the property is another area of vastly different approaches to turnkey investments.

Doing that with any self-directed IRA custodian will be an ongoing nightmare of paperwork, processing delays, and high fees.