My wife and I, plus my son and father-in-law are flying in to learn and meet other investors.  

She moved herself and her kids back to our town to be near her ailing father, her husband will join later this summer.

These are "disqualified persons" and include you and many of your family members.So while a self directed IRA or 401k can invest into real property, you wouldn't be able to direct your IRA to buy a piece of property that your father currently owns, for example.

So, providing you and your father are going to establish a business entity (you should), then there are no IRS gift issues to worry about. 

We are now entertaining the idea of starting out in buying some single family homes in Gary, Indiana as John and his fathers close friend has been buying a ton of homes out there and cash flowing each one of them about $700/mo.My question:   Should we focus on getting this mobile home park or another larger mobile home park first,  or should we buy several of high cash flowing properties and then turn around and then take out a portfolio loan on those to go get the Mobile Home Park of our dreams?

Yet, my father insisted I seek higher education.

I can remember totally renovating rentals with my father and my uncle from the time I was about Five.

My grandmother had two sons, my father and my uncle (who passed away last year also with no will).    

The investor is me with my home equity and my father but no I don't have a real real estate investor who does this for a living.

We had problems getting certain things done (pool maintenance) at some of our rentals and hired a friends recently retired father to take over.He is super reliable and always gets the job done.