The finished product and getting the rewards from the fruit of the labor is way down the line.

We are hoping to avoid doing any sort of partnership and maintain a single member LLC, but searching online hasn't been fruitful.

And none of them had been fruitful.

I live in orange county Ca and we have the same issue.

@Connie Kirkpatrick big fines and orange jump suits

The fees and conditions also can differ a lot, so you should try figure out first what kind of apple do you want (DP, LTV, rate) and then bring them to an apple-to-apple comparison to see which one gives you what you need for what cost (instead of accepting all the fruits that are on display from each different DSCR provider).  

Credit scores are a reflection of someone's ability to learning and understanding the rules of the game and haveing the discipline to play by them.If you already have good credit, already pay everything on time (autopay), then increaseing your limits will probably help you the most, because it gets your utilization down, ideally under 10%.Higher hanging fruits are average credit and account age (just have to wait for that I guess) and inquiries, which are sometimes unavoidable as real estate investors.  

I am a big believer in working with what the market offers you, instead of trying to grow oranges in the winter.Back in 2010 that was foreclosures, in 2015 it was short sales. 

You building and handling the rental, hanging signs, etc is an orange.

You have a couple ways to access that equity.... you can 1031 your orange county property into a large multifamily and create cashflow that way.