@Curt Smith Again, not an expert, but from what I've read online and in the FHA handbook, 1) you only have to owner occupy for 12 months on an FHA, but it's 24 months I believe before they will take into account the rental income, 2) like @Russell Brazil said, you can only ever have 1 FHA at a time, and 3) the 100 mile rule is still in play even after 2 years of owner occupancy if you're moving from one place to another and still holding on to the first as an investment.

I found hondros college has some online classes (the 4 I just listed) for a total of $1600.

Understand the fees involved and calculate the total cost for an entire year of management so you can compare the different managers.

I can only point them to tools they can use online to check for school ratings and crime stats and decide themselves.

Totally agree with @Dan Bryskin. 

It is a totally different process.

I saved a total of 20% from the cheapest independent contractor I could find. 

That's mortgage fraud.If they don't have equity to tap and don't have the cash to lock in a new home first, they'll have to sell their old home first and the buy something.Lenders look at debt to income ratios (DTI), if the some total of the old mortgage and the new mortgage goes over a certain %, which is based on the type of loan they're looking for, they can't get the loan.

Does anyone have rough partnership docs they would be willing to share or example docs available online to sift through to help us think through the issues?

Does anyone know of any GC's with an online presence that are regularly posting content to their website?