My family is fortunate enough to own some real estate in the LA area.. so my goal is to take these properties to the next level.. one property we own is an amazing lot in a great upcoming neighborhood..

Many people don't track leads at this level (and I'm sure most are doing more deals than I am now!).

A local real estate attorney can draft you a note and a security instrument (deed of trust, etc) for this lending arrangement.It would be good to have a loan servicing company handle calculating/collecting payment for a small fee (like how property management companies manage your rentals for a small fee).

@Josane CumandalaAnother reputable company is IRA Services Trust Company.

if yes, do you have a team on the ground that you can trust and have good track record? 

There is an HOA in place but success of this property would have a level of dependency on others (~10 owners hold 80% of the properties so there is a lot of distributed ownership.2. 

I am also thinking that I will then be able to better be able to assess the level of the project and see if just doing it myself seems more feasible.

The current performance level of this business, (~61K/year) does not support the asking price of $750K.  

When you are a long distance away, it is already hard enough to trust that your contractors are properly making repairs, or not over-repairing when not necessary.If you have contractors you trust and work well with, then I think it is OK to self manage from far away, but don't allow your tenants to work directly with your contractor, otherwise you can be taken advantage of.

He now trusts me to invest his money, and I'd like to start building him a Buy & Hold portfolio of rental income properties.