Straight Financial partnership in exchange for net proceeds.Thank You in advance for being awesome.

Essentially just go out for 3 straight weekends and drive the rental heavy areas of your town looking for distressed or abandoned looking properties.

Yield to Investor varies market to market but typical is about 6% - in SoCal the numbers don't tend to work due to valuations between market (straight sale value) vs valuation based on rent and CAP rate.

Meaning my depreciated value would be $80,000/27.5=2,909 straight line. 

I was advised the following items are allowed1) Mortgage interest2) PMI writeoff (FHA loan)3) Accounting services4) HOA fees5) supplies purchased for the rental6) Property management fees plus what I pay7) Homeowners Insurance8) Repairs9) Utilities10) Depreciation (will use straight line method)11) Mileage to and from the property (about 7 miles each way)The condo was occupied beginning 2/2018, purchased 11/2017(lease is up 2/28/2019).

Not to say you can't go straight for out of state, but it is always easier to network and learn when it's close to home

That first scenario is best referred to as a lease-purchase or a lease-option, while the second is straight owner financing.Assuming you mean lease-purchase (or lease-option, which is similar but uses slightly different paperwork), we've had success for over a decade marketing deals like this using Rentals.com.

He is offering to tittle it straight to us so we don’t go through hassle of buying it conventional way.

This seems like a straight forward deal assuming the seller will take that offer as they stated.

One more question though, do you suggest finding a mentor and beginning to wholesale straight out of college?