from your first sentance of who brought the project and thinking of Texas rehabbers I could sense trouble.It happened to me there as well.. now i could afford to take the hit.. but that is ONE TOUGH market to workeven when things went well ARV and sale price never meshed .. its  a local experts market.. and contractors dont need to be licesned.. this simply is not surprising..thanks for posting this is a good warning to others who think fix and flip is like TV.. and to be uber cautious in Texas.

He paid cash for everything and determined that he needed to retire at the age of 55 because he concluded Uncle Sam would take a disproportionate amount in taxes if he kept working vs living off his stock market investments.  

Personally I feel this is far more important than location for the simple reason that if you purchase the property correctly location is simply an added bonus.Some of my thoughts.

I hope they were worthwhile.I know it's too late now but going forward have you considered simply using this here FREE BP website and it's podcasts rather than spending thousands on classes? 

Trying to determine if you are actually making any cash flow here -- I would think you would have to be, but how much?

The landlord sent an email asking if they were prepared to commit to terms, with a lease to follow; the propspective tenant said they would be acceptable, provided that the lease was sent along shortly, and that they were no longer looking at other properties; the landlord sent the lease; the tenant then simply indicated that they had found another property.  

I copied this from a search on real estate ROE:Return on Equity (ROE) ratio calculates the amount of return generated in a particular year on the total amount of equity invested (or trapped) in a property.The amount invested (or denominator) is calculated as the initial investment (down payment) plus the entire increase in net property’s appreciation and the entire decrease in outstanding loan balance incurred prior to the year the ratio is being calculated.Cash-on-Cash Return is a similar calculation, but since the two draw backs of the traditional Cash-on-Cash Return are that property appreciation and principal debt payments are not factored into the formula, Return on Equity adds these two components to the traditional Cash-on-Cash Return calculation.A property’s net equity increase is calculated by determining what the “Net Sale Proceeds after Taxes” would be at the beginning of a year, and then again at the end of the year.

That way you'll have at least some basis for determining who you want to JV with.

The parameters for the deed should be determined based upon the state where the property is located.

Most of these sellers are simply looking for inexperienced buyers to not ask the right questions.