Donna,In most states it is not necessary to have an attorney involved with the closing.

Found an article on non recourse loans involving iras,..... i'm leaving a link to the article here,http://ezinearticles.com/?

Just as long as the deal did not involve lying, and if all aspects of the sale were fully disclosed, then the transaction will probably not be labeled as fraudulent".While prospects of fraud do exist in short sale transactions these deals are being funded every day by national title companies.

I'm not crazy about this at all, and I would only consider it if you cut them a separate check as @Mike Dorneman points out, but I would make it a net benefit to you for the extra risk involved. 

I'm curious about the comment that properties won't appraise because there's no listing agent involved.

In addition you'll want to creating a month to month operation plan for the first 2 years just to make sure your own't run out of money before stabilization. 

Residential loans generally offer more favorable terms than commercial, that's why don't usually hear about commercial loans on 1-4 units outside of special circumstances.Consider looking into FHA 203k loans, or obtaining hard/private money for the construction then refinancing back into a traditional 30 year resi loan after stabilization.

My shorter-term goals aren't quite as lofty, because I know there is a lot of work involved to get there.

I'm heavily involved in large construction projects and I was seeing a lot of interest in the region for large scale development projects.

Although my husband is a agent and it was easy to put in the MLS, he didn’t want to be involved in showing the property (we have demanding w-2 jobs and 3 kids) so we found a local agent who agreed to take any potential tenants who contacted us directly and they would receive that $750 commission if one of those qualified and moved in.