Any recommendations on how to approach this?

To his dismay, I approached him and struck up a conversation. 

Our servicer and the trustee handle all the notifications for us so that we know we're in compliance.You don't have to wait to approach the borrower regarding a Deed in Lieu.

I found a 2BR/1Ba but when i calculate my return investment of 7% and set myself an max. limit, i was overwhelmed by the approach of the Agent.  

Buy at market from the seller and resell at market, while making a profit.It is a similar approach to the wholesale market, except the properties are not distressed and they claim to be buying at market.  

I'm about to approach my landlord about buying the place, but I don't have the cash to buy and renovate.

Your approach of just hauling their stuff out only has to go wrong once.  

In my approach if a house is on the edge of rehab vs. tear down and rebuild, I would lean toward tearing it down.

It is incredibly easy to get started investing in real estate - when you have a w-2 income ....You can build sufficient investment income to quit your 9-5 job within about 5years - if you have the w-2 income to acquire the investments with financing...Unless you are cashing out a 401k to buy real estate (which I highly recommend) go back to your oil and gas job and use that income to buy your investments.Good luck and happy investing,Jeff

You'll need to define each of your roles before you can come up with a split that is "fair" This is just a common sense approach though as I'm not an experienced investor myself.