The life estate could also be seen as an artificial limitation to your investment activity. 

Just make sure that you screen her thoroughly (i.e. credit, criminal and evictions history) so that you don't end up with someone who doesn't pay or pays late every month. 

Also pay close attention to see if there is any illegal activity taking place at the property , I would check if tenants had warrants and also be aware of any tresspassing.  

Although prior to that time, most of the responsibility for finding and vetting the investment property will fall more on myself and the other lesser money partner, but I am not sure if that alone is enough to make up for the money disparity, given that once we have the property most of the day to day activities will be dealt with by a property manager.

If a big expense comes into play, I have two credit cards that are $30k limit each with only 4% Annual interest rate (active duty military).

You can pay by the hour or I have actually created a schedule of rates before where they are paid a flat fee for certain activities.  

I'd say, start with determining as to whether  you'd like to be active or passive investor.

To me, as long as you are getting their FICO score (Not the Vantage score b/s that they are promoting), criminal and eviction history, you are pretty much set.

Having strong tenant screening practices in place helps - my manager charges $40 per credit check and doesn't make much off it, but checks court records, criminal records, credit, and so on.

There are a lot of active members in the DFW area that are willing to help.