Then after that everything went blank.

You're staring down the barrel of having vacancy either way.

And some commercial brokerages have fill-in-the-blank contracts of their own as well.Once you get to larger transaction sizes you'll start to see the letter of intent used for offers, followed by formal purchase agreements written by your real estate transactional law attorney. 

Maybe they are totally legit, but they seem very fill in the blank. 

Sparing the details, he basically offered up he services to do _______________ (fill in the blank).

Al Johnson I'm just staring out myself so I don't have answers to all of your questions but I would let the seller know that you are working with other investors and there is a possibility that one of those investors may possibly be involved in the deal in order for the seller to be satisfied financially.

Quote from @Michael Blank: We strategically focus our multifamily investments in the Southeast region of the US for two key reasons:Lower Costs - Properties are less expensive to acquire in the Southeast than in other parts of the country.

You could also find a lender that will do a blanket mortgage, where they would aggregate all the properties under 1 loan, then you just need to again, find the investors to put up the portion of the downpayment you need and offer them equity and/or return.Seller finance - As you mentioned, you can offer a fair deal that makes sense to you and the seller, explaining how you will take over responsibility of everything (management, etc), and you can give $ (fill in blank) down and pay him the rest of the downpayment in installments from the cashflow on the property and then refinance him out of it later.

It was dinner table conversation for like a year as it dragged on.When I told my Dad that I was staring to invest in real estate, I thought he would say 'that's a terrible idea!'

I know that hard work with flipping and cost it lot money to fix it property land , I see one in area were live in Dallas lot ten place I can stare to work it but must have license REI  that right !!