Are there any tools or strategies you swear by?

For contact management like that its awesome to search for specific types of people and locations or just data like "how long does it take to foreclose in texas".We have some other use cases as well that we use to track not only ours but competitors results online and learning what does and does not work for different aspects of the business.

Clearly define terms, including an exit strategy, buyout options, and how proceeds will be split.

Allow me to explain something to you.What people call "chest pumping" simply is proving others that are wrong with concrete data showing them they are wrong and why, so they can learn and grow from it.

As long as I understand the risk and mitigated the risk with sound exit strategies, I can let people live in my properties and I haven't had any losses yet.

We determined the ARV, estimated our rehab, decided on our required profit, and then negotiated on the purchase price based on that data.

Strategies that use hope, is how people get burned, bad. 

Too many strategies to address  on a post like this but I recommend you research all of the above.

My strategy for the foreseeable future is 'buy and hold' with long-term tenants. 

Being client-centric means putting the interests of my clients first, even if it means walking away from a deal that could have been funded but wasn’t in their best interest.Unfortunately, some unethical lenders take advantage of borrowers, funding deals with the hope that the borrower will fail to repay, allowing the lender to foreclose and profit from the property themselves.