@Bob Malecki , are your Reg D fund investors of the "friends and family" sort?

I've yet to find one that allows any sort of "we buy houses" signs like they are commonly used.They do commonly allow you to put up a sign at your job site advertising that specific property.  

I'm sort of in the same boat as you I am just soaking all the info in before I take the plunge into real estate.

Seems odd that its sort of transferred to you (so you have to deal with cutting the grass) but not really (so you can't sell it.)  

Maybe that got that from me as investor, vacancies make my skin crawl!

When we do work , my company can easily buy materials , but why , I want the customer to have skin in the game , we dont give interest free loans , we dont risk our funds on someone elses project .  

At some point down the road after you and your brother-in-law are RE moguls, you'll want to make sure your assets are under some sort of corporate veil to protect your personal assets from a law suit.Depending on the state, if you do not purchase the property will an LLC, you could be charged transfer and recordation taxes again when you transfer the real property to your LLC or S-Copr, C-Corp, whatever.

Sort of like a sleeper sofa.

And what sort of interest rate?

While other parts of the country ( those that are cash flow driven for SFR's ) or the neighborhoods that are predominately rentals  prices are just trundling along,  in my mind those lower end areas IE housing under 100k through out the mid west and rust belt will really not move unless some sort of subprime ( low credit score not High interest) can come into play that will allow the folks that live in these ares and are renters to move to home ownership..