That being said, would any of you mind sharing your techniques on how you found dependable investors?

The technique I use to find buyers is to attend the tax and foreclosure auctions, watch who is buying houses, and approach them.  

From what Ive found there are supporters and proponents of just about every strategy/technique.

IMO, all investors should learn creative financing techniques & strategies & use them whenever they can.

Do that with all the utilities.As a technique, any utility that can be wasted probably will be.

Unless there’s some other special technique someone knows about?

BP has a lot of hard money resources, tips and techniques search the threads using key words you will find good info. 400K is not a problem it is the smaller amounts that are are more difficult because they simply do not offer enough of a return for the lender.

As an alternative or complement to traditional prospecting techniques, I would suggest anyone check out Address-Level GeoFencing. 

I would not enlarge the fridge. 

But with good advice from a knowledgeable real estate agent, instead of giving away their equity in a "fire sale," they can implement techniques described here and get their property sold at a fair price.