The IRS says you can borrow the lower of: up to $50,000 or half of your account balance. https://www.irs.gov/retirement-plans/plan-particip...The other option is to put your current balance into an IRA and preserve that for a future SDIRA, but meanwhile you won't be able to borrow from it. 

As part of your education, I recommend you find a local Robert Kiyosaki cash flow game to participate in.  

Otherwise drive around and call some yard signs so you know that you're getting someone who is actually doing deals.The average agent on Oahu only participates in 2 transactions a year.  

Our thought process was that if we don't actively participate in the contract part of it, that we would be more looked at as a marketer or advertiser rather than actually selling the property for him.

@Corey King, as long as everyone investing money is an active participant, Texas securities laws and regulations do not apply.If someone invests money and is not an active participant, sale of the "investment" MAY fall under state security laws (assuming the property and participants are all located in the same state), but is probably exemption from securities laws based on the "private placement" exemption.  

The end result may be that you will owe some taxes but not so much to discourage you from participating in the deal. 

The eligibility requirements are two-fold:    1) Presence of self-employment activity (or business with earned income), and      2) Absence of full time employees.If you are eligible then most likely you'll want to go with this option rather than SD IRA because it has several major advantages over IRA such as:- Custodian is not required- Checkbook control over your retirement funds without use of the LLC- No transaction fees- No UBIT on leveraged real estate- Better protection for creditors- Ability to correct a prohibited transaction- Ability to access your retirement funds personally up to $50K via participant loan feature- Tax free investing using Roth sub-account- Contributions limits are nearly 10 times higher ($60K vs $6,500)I do have a resource I can share with you offline that can help you gain better understanding on the subject. 

Looking forward to participating in some good discussion on here.

Might not hurt to get an opinion from the Metro area command on the effect of such business activity on the neighborhood, too - which leads to ...My next thought is inadvertently turning the neighborhood into  a 'hood by encouraging unsupervised congregation around your (unmanned) vending machines with no way to police or otherwise control participant activities.  

Most owners simply do NOT vote or care enough to participate.