The questions that I would ask as a private lending partner would be as follows:o Are you a foreign national of the United States or do you have a green card (permanent resident alien)?

well i lived through it.. painful as it was.Gap lending is far to risky for almost anyone end of story.. totally agree.the only time it works is with some decent cross collateral and or you have a substantial relationship with the client and have done LOTS of deals with them for many years. 

In other word, we don't actually have houing affordability problem if folks wanna move to Milwaukee, income is slowly rising there while home price can't catch up LOL,  I surprised also The Milwaukee income earner is crossing 100k based on Fannie Mae data LOL

Thank you for the input, @Travis Timmons & @Jonathan Greene.

Long Distance Real Estate Investing by David Greene is on my list of books, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Following David Green's Core 4 strategy (realtor, contractor, property manager, and lender) gives confidence to invest anywhere.

Quote from @Jonathan Greene: Anything is possible, but most of the time people are looking for seller finance, it's because they don't have enough money for a downpayment.

Quote from @Jonathan Greene: Who was helping you with this sale? 

Basic recommendations- Deed of Trust-Personal Guarantee-Promissory note-JV agreement (to protect the lender from violating usury laws)-clear late fee schedule, cure period agreement-cross collateral if the subject property doesn't safely cover you with enough equity

I can cross-check some listings for you.