I wont be able to do it any justice by going into detail, but if your feeling a bit unorganized with your properites I strongly suggest you check out!

And some lenders wont go to 75%5) No.

He has suffered at least one stroke that we know of and he is starting to show early signs of dementia.

if i decide to go ahead and rent to him and wife , im planning to   ask him to do the following:- fill out rental application- $30 fee for background criminal records- proof of insurance for the business- proof of wife license that permits her to work with children- proof of income from job to ensure they can pay rent even if business not  making moneyi read in the internet to watch out for those people who wants to pay in advance because they wont pay eventually. 

What happens then is the smaller centers suffer whereas with a smaller retail PM company that focuses on that box size tends to do better.You could learn how they manage, lease up, etc.Management yourself is generally not worth the headache.

What the lender doesn't know wont hurt him.

if your going to buy rentals this is very vanilla basic real estate.you need to not rely on others to give you market rents.. ( call a PM if your curious) or look at the adds in the paper or on line.then its just all working it backwards you should already be pre approved for a loan.. no reason to even look if you dont have that in hand.. most realtors ( my wife included) wont work with a client without a pre approval form a trusted lender.do some of your own work and research this simply is not that hard.. 

I wont be stopped by one scary article.

Congratulations for suffering through a education process that all new landlords should be forced to face.

What you are asking for is a lender that is a fix n flip lender or a hard money lender, which you wont find with your local banks in most cases.