I've done a good amount of work on family homes and Habitat for Humanity projects to know home repair basics.My goal is to get comfortable enough with the process and paperwork to buy a foreclosure with minimum overhead.

Patrick Donovan 203k loans are great but essentially you are taking the equity out of the house and using some of that to repair your house. lol it's always a catch to something that's too good to be true......I found this out recently as I thought it was just money from a large sum of money the government gives out.

No escrow company involved, so want to be sure I know what paperwork is needed. 

Doing this essentially gives you a 0% loan.  

Just remember that generally with lower rates comes more analysis and more risk assessment (i.e. paperwork/time) or maybe a good working relationship with any lender (private or hard money).

By using software or list sources, you are essentially outsourcing this analytical process and depriving yourself of an education that you can build on for years to come.

Make sure you terminate the lease with proper paperwork.

I'm thinking of handling this in an addendum, though he stated that he does not want the hassle of more paperwork.

Essentially, that means there is no personal guarantee from the partner or a disqualified party to their IRA.There are many lenders out there that will put together a package and cross-collateralize several properties into one loan.  

No escrow company involved, so want to be sure I know what paperwork is needed to be recorded.