What I'm hung up on is how to make a deal work so that it produces a satisfactory rate of return for the money partner.

If your potential numbers already look good, you most certainly won't regret the money spent on a designer!

,...the one that makes  you more money. 

So, looking at the flips I take on, with anticipated profits in the $70k+ range, the setup costs alone are eating nearly 20% of your potential profits, and that is before any real splits with your investors, leaving both your investors and you with not a lot of money left to spread around.A fund could work, but typically, for the economics of a syndication/fund structure to work, you are looking at several million of equity, leveraged up to high single millions, if not into $10+ million range for their to be enough money to make it worth everyone's efforts.

For example, turnkey is great for people who are busy working 9-5 and want to simply invest their money somewhere instead of it sitting in the bank.

Layoffs have started for full time jobs and people want to save money instead of going on vacation, other people can't afford it because they have run up their credit cards because their salaries hasn't matched the rise of inflation for basic goods.

It is still a good investment, as money continues to flow into the area.

I've been told I can get rehab budget (basically hard money terms) but I'll struggle to get commercial financing given the number of units and valuation.

Failure is not an option in anything that I put my time and money into. 

Being that I own it outright, and only need $125k (budgeting for unknowns), not many hard money lenders have been overly interested.