You're going to have to do a lot of footwork.

We come from a pretty small population area and the properties cover a very wide price range. the deals are here to be made , if you don't mind the foot work.

I guess there is some really fancy footwork to get around this, but I'd assume it needs to be ALL 401 money.

Your realtor should have done some footwork to see if any properties were financed in that community with lesser downpayments prior to getting you under contract during this calendar year. 

Find a realtor in that area, start having them send you prospects while contacting a few banks in parallel.you want a realtor that will do the footwork whether local or remote.  

If these meet your investment criteria then start looking in person or have boots on the ground doing the footwork for you.

You can go do some footwork and get better leads (in my experience) or you can buy a list and get a lot of calls, but from less motivated people.

Should I perform a basic rent analysis and multi-family appraisal (very basic - I was an appraiser in a former career) to get a better understanding of what I'm offering the potential developer ... or is this just a waste time as the developer still has to do all this footwork eventually anyway?

So I will have to get out there and do some foot work for that.

Seems to work good at most all campuses since students are rather lazy. requires footwork though