If you are allow the attendant open it up, what's your plan to mitigate theft or is there a percentage that you just plan to write off as a loss due to nature of business?

Yes, naturally, financing a renovation will lower your equity, simply because the mortgage balance is higher, relative to paying cash for those same renovations. 

I’ve watched wholesale deals regularly get bid up to near-market value.... you have to be very creative to find anything worth buying.

@Joel Loughrin I actually just read that you can have an unlicensed employee manage but they must be on w2 and they'd have to be a regular employee (you'd have to pay workers comp, etc) so I guess that's up to you but sounds more expensive than a property manager.

Where do you go in Los Angeles to report a suspicion of this nature?

They may be willing to pay more, but its still a regular transaction. if you're doing this without brokers, definitely have a good lawyer to advise.

We have plenty of help regulars you'll see on these forums all with their own area of expertise (@mayer  many of which are more than willing to share their networks and inputs on whatever pocket you are looking into in/around the city.

If we’ve established an understanding of using a 401(k) for a real estate investment, the real thing I’m curious to understand is how a partnership can be structured in such a way where one of the partners, such as myself, is using their 401(k) but the other partner or partners are just using regular funding which they already have and may not necessarily need or want reimbursement?

So stop paying extra on top of your regular mortgage payments and put that into savings. 

I still have my regular job @ 50k a year but the properties pay for themselves, extra cash goes straight towards the principal on the mortgages.