A handyman is a critical player in your RE team .

Friends family and associates that know and trust you may be very happy to lend at 6% when they are earning 3% in a bank CD. 

Seems to me like the big players have learned from previous mistakes@Wayne BrooksBingo. 

Must be C/D neighborhoods.

C/D areas seem good for cash flow but in reality evictions, limits on housing authority vouchers, and a more unstable tenant pool means the returns are almost never as good as they look on paper, unless you're a very experienced investor working in your own market (saving money on management fees).

Any chance you have per-unit average prices broken down by classes (A, B, C, D)? 

Also, try attending local real estate meetups to see who the players are and what the strategies are that would work better for you.

If you are doing section 8 rentals in a c/d area, then you over rehabbed.

I also understand that banks might be more willing to deal at the end of the quarter or year - the fewer properties on their books, the better for their balance sheet. end of quarter is a real thing I bought a big mansion that a NBA player had gotten 3.4 done  on a disposition from wells fargo .but it had to be off the books by a date certain so we had about 6 business days to close it.. we paid 1.7 million in cash for it. then refinanced it after we owned it and pulled out another million to finish it.. turned out to be my best rehab ever sold it first day on the market for 5 million :)  I had 2 other partners.. so its was a nice pay day.. but that all happened because wells wanted it off their balance sheet or default list by end of a certain quarter..

Much like "ratholing" in poker where the player takes his chips off the table and ends up only playing with the banks money.