The way I’m looking at real estate is pretty simple, buy a property, rent it out for more money then the expense of owning the property is, make a profit.

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I am struggling to see cash flow and any profitability. 

Profit margin, proximity to home, and the fact that it was mainly just cosmetic renovation.

If you've lived in the primary for at least 2 years you should be able to exempt the first $500K of profit tax free. 

How can I use as little of my money as possible and still turn a decent profit when I sell?

How would we structure a profit split if they are wholesaling by contract assignments?

., and came up with the Howey rule:  "a contract, transaction or scheme whereby a person invests his money in a common enterprise and is led to expect profits solely from the efforts of the promoter or a third party." 

It should be mentioned we will still be nearly doubling our investment with the prices she is suggesting, but could potentially be missing out on almost an extra 100k in profit should we finish and list at what I think it feel the market would support.  

The "co-invest" I mean is to share the purchase price so that my partner would treat my property like his or her own so that s/he would put effort into it to make it more profitable unlike those property management whose only interest is to eat as much of investors' cashflow as possible.