Wishful thinking to buy equity in DFW now?

[Tom Lafferty]

I am sitting here with a pile of money wanting to purchase some SFH's as rentals using hard money. Ideally I'll buy something around 90-130K ARV that has at least 20K equity in it. Looking primarily for distressed (even heavily) properties, is this wishful thinking without becoming a full time wholesaler in order to find motivated sellers in terrible situations?
Apparently this was going on consistently even 6 months to a year ago buying FROM wholesalers and using realtors. I was talking to a hard money lender yesterday whom I trust completely and is a successful investor himself. He said even four months ago his customers were regularly ending up with 12-15K out of pocket on a 100K ARV. Now it is very common to need 20+ at closing. In FOUR months! Makes me feel like I'm late to the party....
All that to say, I'm trying to find a balance between putting the money I have into something now that is an OK deal, or hold out, start marketing for sellers myself, and wait for a really good deal with more equity.