He is a mentor of mine as well, and is not so interested in making money but rather he told me that he likes to see 7% in his passively invested accounts, so I offered and he accepted that I would pay him 8% APY On the principal that I borrowed. 

You can offer them cash for keys-give them money to move.

If the properties are cash flowing then you are blowing that money elsewhere and if you do not change your habits you will be back in the same spot.

It gives you valuable experience as a landlord firsthand which will be helpful down the road when you consider a BRRRR strategy with hard money.

Given your question however, I get the sense that this might be your first time managing a project like this and so would strongly advise that you connect with a General Contractor that you can trust as it will end up saving you a lot of time and money over doing it on your.

They believe putting it on the MLS will make the most sense to them.Like everyone else, we are always willing to partner with people that want to learn through experience and find more propductive ways to find deals.There is money to be made in real estate in this current economy, if you find deals that have not yet hit the MLS.

With a lot of these deals, they will be very disheveled, and you will need to buy them with hard money instead of conventional financing. 

Hello, I am completely new to investing money on a scale such as this.

(Not actively purchasing as my money is tied up in the market right now)...so with the 2 lenders i've gotten here:STR DSCR Rural (not a log cabin or other non-conforming structure) just remote sfrHybrid loan 15% down, interest only investment loan with seller paid points to get to ~8% and reduce closing costs DSCR would use long term rental rates to establish monthly DSCR and then offset monthly with average DTI and 800+ credit and high cash reserves as long as DSCR is .75+additional appraisal to establish STR rate estimates to be used alongside the standard long term rental rates5 year prepayment penalty with reasonable terms

He followed a simple formula: save money, buy in an area you know, like, and trust, then rinse and repeat while learning along the way.