With two people working in the family one could be a safety net, while the other could start a new venture like real estate. 

For liftoff, as I say, or for getting your first property, having an already built up emergency fund in place up front is surely essential to maintaining liquidity in the short term until these monthly contributions to a maintenance fund amounts to anything.

You are essentially using real estate as inventory.

I am not on the title and I understand I could always put a mechanics lien on the property, but are there other safety measures I could put in place to limit my exposure?  

What are the 5 or 6 (or however many) essential questions you will ask to get essential information/motivation?

By effectively eliminating investor owners, they are reducing the pool of potential buyers and essentially lowering values. 

So they will essentially work for "free" from your perspective (if you're someone that's not used to charging fees like late fees and other fees) Good luck!

Essentially you are taking over the payments of the current owner.

I suppose I could have more units or loans once I had a few properties under my belt and a bigger safety net.

No bank is probably going to give you cash out but you could at least pay off the hard money lender and essentially have a no money down deal.