If you restrict yourself to only using the money you have in your pockets, then you have a limited supply of money, which not only prevents you from doing deals, but also gives you a slower growth rate in your business (how fast do you want to get out of your career?).  

*How about a shorter hold period with the idea that once the leverage is lost the investment is sold and the process repeated.The other thing about an indefinite hold period is that like you mentioned once the property is finally sold they will deal with a huge taxable amount that could have been prevented with a shorter period.  

Send your hvac guy there for the 6 month or annual cleaning, bill that back to the investor (as a PM, I"m not paying for preventive inspections) and you'll be getting 2 visits a year (one by you and one by the hvac guy) to the house - thats enough.If an investor wants more, then fine, you come up with a fee for that to cover it.

It prevents wasting their time as well!

We have found that a change in our procedure has prevented alot of these problems.

I truly do anything I can to prevent taking money from her in the deal.

Or are there provisions that prevent a buyer from doing so?

You would likely need to talk to an attorney and ask about how that would work since you might be in a bind waiting for the tenants option to expire and be prevented from doing anything until that time. 

That construction agreement may not be valid without a license.Forget any construction financing, you can't give the property as collateral.If suppliers extend credit for materials, they will generally want the address and owner to sign or a licensed contractor with a valid construction agreement allowing liens to be created.You can file your option and cloud title, but that cloud doesn't prevent an owner from selling the property subject to that option, the new owner will be obligated to sell it under the option, but if you fail to exercise it as agreed, they will own the place.

Regardless of the price range you're working in on the retail (agent side of the deal), it doesn't prevent you from investing in homes in any price range.