Interest applied to the original Loan amount, and not to the remaining balance.2 - 20 year term to payoff.3 - Payments would be made monthly for P & I.4 - Interest over 20 years @ 10%/year = $10k/year for each loan.5 - Principle payoff per year = $5k/yr/loan6 - TOTAL coverage needed = $15k/yr/loan or $30k/yr based on $200k in loans (both loans)This allows you to use the funds as many times as you want, but only have to pay for these funds once. 

He seems totally fine with the drive but I wonder how similar situations turned out for some of you?

First, tell you boss at your company and make sure it's okay -- it doesn't do any good to make an investor mentor if you also lose your 9-to-5.As for approaching the individual: 1) explain why you're interested; 2) say that you did get the ok from your company, and that you're doing it in a totally private not-related-to-your-company way; and 3) offer to help out with his properties like you said.A key thing to be clear about -- if you offer to do any of your professional day-job work for him on the side as a favor for him helping you out, you need to be sure that your company doesn't mind you doing it.

Market seems to be saying your units are economically productive and on par with comparable units as is (based on tenants grabbing them).And, as you know now, that new smell and model home appearance of the totally remodeled and rehabbed unit will fade fast when the tenants treat it like, well, a rental...So you may just end up remodeling again if you sell or get a rough tenant..I tend to do more work on units prior to a sell and let the horses run with a rental with tenants in place that are relatively happy.

I’d bet he’d be able to help you!

Totally jammed until November.

I’d be willing to bet it would cost less than a 1000 to get that place up to code .

I don't know what your market's like but, in general, 40 days on the market isn't that long.Again, not knowing exactly what's going on in your market, I would bet that there are plenty of lenders out there that will finance with less than a 49% owner occupant ratio.

The 3 lots are worth $500-600K total but no bank will lend on them, its just crazy to me. 

I don't want to put 3.5-5-10% FHA because the total monthly mortgage including property tax, and home owners insurance can be between $2200-2900 not even including utilities.We do live in southern california so housing prices are high.