Funding my first deal has been my biggest hurdle, as I am trying to come up with some creative ways to do so.

I am no lawyer or CPA, so don't believe a word I say and check it with professionals and people who have done it first (all I wrote below is taken from reading, so just assume I don't know what I am talking about ;-)), but my understanding is:- the biggest challenge is the due on sale clause (that gives the bank the right to charge the balance on sale).

I would say the biggest advantage would be if you could have your kids rent the rooms of the house out!

The biggest things that vary property to property are insurance, taxes, and utilities. 

I like  (and so will your future partners) that you have "skin in the game", that is probably your biggest selling point...and yes solicitation of partnership has every bit to do with sales as marketing a home on the MLS.

The biggest hurdle to overcome is clearly the start-up capital needed to get off the ground. 

Master lease options (small apartments)Here's my advice if you have terrible credit:Don't be real estate investor in the traditional sense where you need great creditBe a real estate entrepreneur where you solve a problem for the home sellerThe biggest problem right now for sellers is to have "no equity"Pretty houses with no equity are great opportunity for entrepreneurs with terrible credit to make some moneyHere is an example:Expired listing, house comps out at 500,000, they owe for 490,000, basically no equity, it was expired because they listed the house for 550,000 and nobody saw the house (over priced house is #1 reason for exprireds, like 80% of the time)Have you got no credit or bad credit and you can't get financing yourself, why not solve the problem for the home seller?

Seems like the day after I closed they sent inspectors to every single one of those properties and gave me a laundry list of building and health code violations that I was 100% personally responsible for regardless of who the LLC was.2). the cheapest properties were the biggest problems.  

The biggest problem you might have is if everyone moves out and only the son stays.

I believe that your biggest mistake was to renew the lease of the tenant with all the issues ( by the way, why would you expect the tenant to renew her lease when there are so many issues with her apt that have not been fixed for a very long time?).