When tenants need to apply to several places to secure a rental they could end up paying an entire months rent in application fees just to secure a rental.

And I had to come up with a month's rent (nearly $1300) in security deposit, because HUD doesn't subsidize security deposits.  

the seller has to trust that you / the buyer is going to make the payments and also pay the taxes and be a good steward of the property since that's their security on the loan.usually you'd put a balloon in, but i bought one deal where the numbers worked out for us to fully amortize it over 12 years. 

Focus on distressed properties or those with motivated sellers to secure a better deal upfront.

A few months later, we received a notice from the lender stating that we no longer had home insurance and needed to secure coverage within a certain number of days.As it turns out, our original home insurance was canceled because it required the property to be owner-occupied.

A lot of other markets 20 years from now could be ghost towns with little demand.But on the flipside, that safety/security comes with lessor immediate returns, as is a normal balance with investments (more risk traditionally equals more short term gain potential). 

You will need to really start playing the long game though and focus on securing assets that have good underlying fundamentals as you will need to get more creative with the financing if you want to keep moving quickly.

Second would be leave the paid off one's alone and use them as a financial base and security.

Before I looked at the deal, here's what I asked from him:The purchase and sale agreementRehab breakdown documentation2 HUD statements of previous dealsDeal info (Property profile, funding, security, repayment plan, etc.)Title company involved in the transactionWhat I also asked for was a term sheet from the hard money lender that was lending at first position.

Your decision comes down to how long you want to hold onto the property and whether you can secure financing to make that happen.