There is one guy, initials DD, who is such a sleaze bag, even being in the same room as him makes my skin crawl.

Lots of ways to skin this cat so to speak.

In essence, prepare your private equity partner to bring more skin in the game if necessary to do these deals.

It’s certainly irritating, but one of those things that’s simply not worth dwelling on.

What value do they bring aside from perhaps finding the deal and having some skin in the game also?

They need to have some skin in the game if they expect you to take on some risk. 

You put some box on it to prevent turn-off, tenant shuts off a circuit breaker that feeds that system electricity.Tenant + irrigation = Landlord + irritation :)

I wait to do the inspection after the documents because it costs me about $500 and since the sellers don't have any "skin in the game" at that point, they can just refuse to negotiate post-inspection and I'm out half a G.

It is legal, but you are hindered by title company private policies and other things.It is not impossible as proven by other BP members, but difficult.There are other ways to skin the cat.

However, I generally collect a deposit so that they have skin in the game and less likely to walk away.