If you are "broke" as you say and can't afford top dollar, he will just move onto another investor or better yet a retail buyer who is looking to live there.

My goal is to build a portfolio of rental properties, beginning with residential, then multi-family, maybe some retail, etc. in the future.

You can get these homes much cheaper than retail price.

I didn't judements of retail debt followed the house.

Hopefully you are not trying to take a referral fee and are just handing off your client to capable hands for the asset type they are buying.As a commercial broker specialist in large apartment buildings and retail properties we get requests a lot for people wanting to buy right now.No room in the fees for referrals.  

(projects varied from SFR , office/retail condos, office buildings, and office parks). 

they require a low 1.0 debt coverage ratio so as long as your rents cover PITIA expenses then your good to go, cash out is required to be used for "business purposes" only their retail division is Cash Call mortgage, FICO can be as low as 600 and cash out LTV's from 65-75% based on credit, I used to work for IMPAC as they were rolling out the product, it is pretty competitive in the market for this type of financing. 

I'll be napping in the meamtime.But the last 3 dogs I sold easily by owner for full retail should have given me a clue :)  At least you didn't buy bitcoin at $19k.

Wholetail (wholesale + retail): Sold to landlords, or home buyers who want to build sweat equity.

We by FAR aren't going to pay over retail, but we are not afraid to pay retail if the numbers work out.