You assign the lease option agreement to a tenant-buyer and receive an assignment fee without needing to close on the property yourself.

Either you learn to be good at it, or partner(your business partner, not someone who works on commission/salary/fees) with someone who is good at it. 

While it’s an affordable entry point with low maintenance, you need to watch out for high HOA fees, rental restrictions, and resale challenges.

Construction loans have a fair amount of fees involved.

(your 55 days of vacancy was for the most part the holiday period).Vacancies are pretty high and based on BLS statistics, population growth has been flat. 

We have a modest security deposit collected up front along with 1st month's rent and the cleaning fee.

I’m not focused on volume, but rather on maximizing the assignment fee per deal, compared to doing multiple smaller deals to achieve the same result.My question is: Where can I find sellers with messy titles?

I want to be able to do a cash deal to get a lower price and avoid all the cost that go along with a lot loan, fees, points, etc.

That's the other challenge that i've learned, with only one month as SD, if the tenant leaves even in a relatively new build the fees add up. 

If they fail to pay the taxes, plus fees and interest, within that time, then the property legally becomes yours.