The investor would buy an ugly black box that produced money if it was the right price.

In my opinion, if you pay a "kicker" to the seller, you're just taking money out of your own pocket and transferring it to a party that is not taking an equity risk in the deal.

We lease a platform for online access and efficiency with both a lender and investor portal.

But even to this day the money is always the winner not me.. thats how you raise significant capital ..

Value your money more. 

Of the IRA money I spent $120k on the remodel.

When my business partner and I were still flipping we bought a couple through Auction.com and we always used a private money lender to fund those and our other flips. 

Even if you break even, you will lose money every month it sits vacant, when you need repairs, property management, etc.

Sure it does. but depending on who the celebrity is/was.....That's why so many little hotels, boarding houses, vacation rentals, etc..... feature this in their advertising.And in some cases, you will not get more money, but you will get more guests.A little while ago, I went to Tombstone AZ and stayed in 'The first boarding house in Tombstone'....really cool place but kinda small and, well....old feeling.

The six month cd isn’t the point my understanding is that I can’t just take out the HELOC, I need to actually use the money for my plan to work and a short term CD seemed safe and reasonable