I've been assuming that conventional lenders want the buyers to have skin in the game.

You should speak to a competent lender that can either do delayed financing, which would be backing you 80% LTV out of the deal keeping some skin in the property.

I feel that anyone in this community is setting themselves up to be part of the latter.Anyways, I'm in Philly and looking to get skin in the game in 2023.

This can be a slow going process to start but once you have a good portfolio of properties the equity will be there to scale... doing low down payments and variable rate mortgages etc. is risky and doesn't leave enough skin in the game to do much with. 

If you want to be successful in real estate, you’ll need to have a lot thicker skin than what you’re exhibiting in your last post2.

The lenders I work with do not allow gift funds since its more risk to the lender as the borrower has less skin in the game.

It's all about "TRUST" and giving him skin in the game. 

Leaving the existing financing in place.Many ways to skin a cat, but most of the times your GOOD or GREAT deals come after the property has been listed for a while.Continue to move forward and eventually you will arrive at your destination.SUCCESS BREEDS SUCCESS

Then take out the loan from the bank jointly (so your boots on the ground guy has some sort of skin in the game) secured against YOUR asset.

You need some skin in the game, take whatever cash and credit you have and leverage it to do Rental Arbitrage and rent a multi-family and then Air bnb it.