What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

:) A good agent will meet up with you for a few hours, and along with educating you on the entire buying process (financing, contracts, inspections, what to expect in negotiations, etc) they will also be able to guide you by running comps and telling you if the home is priced well, as well as discovering any issues preventing the property from selling (liens, disputes)...Not sure about CA and AZ, But I have a buddy who renovated his dental office without pulling permits, and when the city found out, they made him literally gut it and redo it with permits.I would urge you having some conversations with agents in your area. interview a couple, and they should guide you in the right direction.

Does anyone have suggestions for lenders who don't require like 5 builds in the last 12 months in order to finance?

Second property was personal savings plus every penny that I made from the first rental income.

When I relied on 3rd party GC's, another mistake I made was failure to keep track of the sub contract agreements my GC should have been executing with the sub contractors.

But then again, the beach was made for it and how majority of our revenue is made in our area. 

There's nowhere to raise rents to in order to make up the difference.

My fiancée and I recently made our first post here and after gaining some great advice we have refined our goals and our now looking for more specific guidance. 

What are the typical returns , ie total return, or time weighted average return, or IRR, on syndicated commercial retail real estate investments you have made in past, and what area of the US have you found the best returns in?

When you refinance and take cash out you want to typically do a Max LTV cash out so long as you cash flow.In order to grow efficiently you need to make sure you are using a Bank/Lender that is investor friendly.