I personally would be careful trading options with borrowed money… seems like a risky proposition.  

What stops the person with 51% ownership from…Hiring their spouse to manage the property @ 50% commissionHiring relatives for cleaning/maintenance at inflated prices.Blocking out holidays for their use. etc etc. 

What's really important are these 2 things.1) How much research, work connections and investigating are you personally willing to do in any of these markets? 

I have 3 properties in my personal name (to get best rates).

I use it like others use a personal website.

If your friend is a super responsible person I’d be troubled by this.

Personally I like Facebook marketplace but I get about 85% flakes who either just aren’t qualified or end up no-showing to the showings.

But he has a fulltime office person ($??

Don’t waste your time with the large banks, you’ll never get to the right person unless you operate a hedge fund and are going to buy hundreds at a time.I found small local banks work the best.

I have one LTR that I do plan to leverage to purchase my next property, but I am really looking to find hard money lenders/investors to help fund future deals.