It's been producing a LOT of carbon monoxide, so much that I feel like it's a hazard to go into the basement to work on it.Does anyone have any ideas about how I can 1) reduce the amount of carbon monoxide produced or 2) better mitigate?

Be sure and do proper screening to help reduce chances of getting a bad tenant.

Your shouldn't spend a whole lot on materials, most of your cost will be in labor.  

His did not work out, and he believes the reason is that he did not have the ability to get quotes from multiple contractors and thus ended up with unnecessarily high labor cost.

You and he are partners, your contribution is labor and management.

It might just be my feeling on the subject but I tend to think most people do their own basements based on labor and all the costs of doing it legally.  

I just got a letter to set up the eft for taxes and I might change my mind and pay monthly and reduce the amount I put in savings.  

On the money I wanted to know if it will be for materials and labor, design, permits, engineering or ?

After a number of deals, one of the lenders reduced to 10% for me, funding up to 75% of the purchased price.For private loans, closed friends let me use the money for 5-7%.  

We have had numerous clients going through 1031 Exchanges in order to qualify for purchase money loans (as opposed to cash-out refinance transactions) or to consolidate a number of properties into one larger property in order to reduce the number of outstanding loans.