You can test how confident she really is in her friend’s ability to pay by asking if she’d be willing to co-sign for him, just to gauge her response.

If so, if he and I sign on a paper, is that sufficient ?

You need to refer to the new CZO (Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance) and determine the current zoning as well as the future land use zoning.You can look up the zoning here:  http://property.nola.gov/

I am trying to determine if $120/sq ft is accurate for me.

Hes going to get a leasing agreement signed on Monday and will list the property at 1.5M$ as of now.

Those will exhibit the opposite of an inclined business cycle.I believe that an Investor can intelligently determine whether then business cycle will be inclined, declined or just horizontal by understanding what happens to their particlar neighborhood during the down cyle part of the business cycle.For instance, in the downturn, it is normal for Cities to lose money, and therefore cut services.

No clue how this ended up in my email but I probably signed up.

Good "Credit" for your company is not that important because you will be expected to sign personally for everything anyway. 

So I would go driving for dollars and hanging up bandit signs, I even did some door knocking on pre-foreclosures for them.

The number 1 determining factor in how your investment performs is going to be the area in which the investment is located.