Mentors and experienced partners are a great way to expedite your RE education and help to mitigate the costly mistakes in the field as you learn.

If you go this route, buy the very nicest asset you can afford as desirable properties perform well and mitigate your risk.

Just have to be prepared as best as possible with reserves and mitigate negative factors as much as possible

I had a flea outbreak in my house not sure how it happened but before you knew it they were jumped on my leg ankle bitters.

Could I go with him and mitigate liability by having him sign off on some kind of waiver?

I view it as one of the costs of mitigated risk.  

A Wind Loss Mitigation Report (WLM) will also help reduce your cost assuming the property is older than 2002. 

Further, for any maintenance items over $250 they typically get 3 bids for me, so it mitigates maintenance costs.

Currently I am focusing mainly in cash flow due to risk mitigation and because it’s early in my REI career.

If you are viewing this purely by the numbers, then house hacking in Atlanta would likely be the top choice to go with since you would jump start your investing career while mitigating your living expenses by having tenants pay your mortgage if you find the right property.