I have a a friend here on the island named Danielle, she's been a big fix and flipper, so I'm hoping to ride along with her sometime.

No one gets a free ride.  

HML traditionaly are for short term lending situations NOT buying rentals.. some have morphed into a rental product.a few others to consider.Visio LendinghomeLendingonethese are legit..who is not legit is usually one off people that advertise on facebook..and other places.. offer rates that are under industry averages.. then hook you for a small application fee that turns into scam money and you never hear from them again.unfortunately real estate is prime ground now for Nigerian prince scam type things.Couple reasons .. the Internet  the huge demand by those that have never bought real estate or a rental entering the market and have no real experience to understand the industry or what is real and not real.

They're going to ride out the year lease.

I ride my bike down different streets every weekend and write down the addresses of distressed homes. we run the titles and see if theres any juicy info. even if I don't get anyt great info back its the process of thinking this way that will hep in the end. if your hungry enough you will find a way. when I was stuck I simply went outside and looked at all the houses in my neighborhood . started paying attention to what was selling and what was sitting.

Turn it over to your lawyer to handle and ride it out.

If someone let you ride along on one of their deals would you feel confident using some of your equity, 401k on the next one? 

But he somehow manages to ride his bike around the neighborhood and buy fast food at several places.

I started mine in 92 with my banker and talked him into a 100k line of credit to by timber.. that morphed to multi millions and now I will borrow 7 to 10 million a year from them for new construction and on buy and hold if I ever chose to do that which I don't..

I would take a ride down and see exactly where the neighborhood is divided.