Also, check if they have skin in the game (their own money invested), as it shows they’re confident in the deal and aligned with your interests.If you’re considering alternatives, REITs are fantastic for super-passive investors who want steady, low-effort returns—usually about 2 points above a savings account—but you lose tax benefits and control.

If I donated to aids health foundation and they spent the money on rent control instead of aids research or health care, I would be pissed.  

I'm sure there are many more experiences where the contractor hasn't fulfilled their scope of work and gotten away with rushing the project to meet the deadline, And, I don't want to be as naive to say that I'm that 1% who can have complete quality/operational control, but I'm confident I can establish a system and hire independent inspectors to review the contractor's work. 

Because if I'm trapped going larger than $5M in the future, I'd probably look for something smaller that I can control now rather than always having to use it in a syndication

Cannot control association fees3.

And given #3 above, it leaves about 20% of rent for all other expenses like property tax, insurance and other PM expenses like leasing fee, eviction fee and other minor expenses like for e.g landscaping, pest control etc.

How much “control” are you willing to give up? 

Pricing tools that exist on the market are decent, but you also need to know how to control it, otherwise, it will go nuts with unrealistic rates far out and extreme last-minute discounts. 

If you want to grow, then scaling within control is good.

What's the exit strategy if any, for the investor, given that, with 50%, he has no control and the market there is illiquid, especially when the HELOCs out of North American properties are much more expensive.Properties in Costa Rica are already expensive and I've tried many times to make a potential investment there work and it's never worked with the figures.