He mentioned to me there is NO money whatsoever I need to come to the table with but needs a partner for bank purposes with W2's. 

The knob and tube will be mostly replaced although I haven't figured out whether to re-trade or meet them in the middle or what yet.

All of which depend on the sub code officials governing each trade in the town.

I'll second what Jennifer said, you can run into a lot of regulatory and legal problems with hard money lending, so I would start by trying to find out first, is there a trade association in your area for hard money lenders? 

Trading up in this way will allow you to take advantage of “scale”, your rents will be higher, your maintenance will likely be lower. 

Get a number from CPA.If you are buying something else, you may do well trading the created note a face with out a discount. 

I had the TD Ameritrade app but that was to easy to day trade and I got burned a couple of times trading.

Originally posted by @Alex Mao:@Jay Hinrichs Good valid pointAnd I had bay area investor who bought 4 plexs in PHX  for 350 k each and in 2010 they were trading for under 100k each.. when they go hundred % vacant and stay that way for more than a year.. you lose them. 

You just need to gently make them understand the situation.The analogy is trying to trade your used car in at a dealership.

I am now back looking for more places as I saved up and am also trading up through 1031 exchanges.