At the young tender age of 16, my family set me up in an arrange marriage.

You must wait till a tenant leaves voluntarily which can be arranged if you are creative.

If there was some rent-back arrangement, the title company might hold a damage escrow or disburse funds as agreed between the parties, but otherwise title is out of this. 

And another, one guy spoke with the investment department of a well known world wide high tech company and arranged to give real estate investing seminars *at the company* in one of their conference rooms on an ongoing basis.

Depending on the amount of painting and cleaning required, a unit might not be able to be placed in service until painting or cleaning was complete, but you could reasonably place a unit in service with old door locks, no flowers, and a non-functioning garage door opener. 

Plant some perennial flower beds and some flowering trees.

In that case the investor would basically be using their name to get a loan and otherwise completely passive.So instead of deciding what the split should be you should be discussing with your partner what the business arrangement looks like.

But hire an attorney to prepare the paperwork -- a business attorney with real estate knowledge -- so it's clear exactly what happens if there is a breach of the agreement.Nobody wants a partner who does nothing yet, due to an improperly structured arrangement, still ends up with equity.

Estoppels eliminate the "but the previous owner and I had a special arrangement" argument. 

For the past few years, I have paid a company to mow the lawn weekly, but their prices for general upkeep (maintaining the flower beds, pulling weeds and trimming hedges are outrageous).