A little about me:I live in Juneau, Alaska in a desirable 1 bedroom condo and am going to buy a house with the help of equity accrued (about $60k).

Out of curiosity does anyone ever attempt to contact the seller directly if they feel they are in these situations?

In this case, you would get the points up front as a fee and then the interest that accrues + the balance at the sale of the flip.Private money tends to be low or no upfront points and a lower interest rate (6-10%) but the flipper typically has an established track record and oftentimes experience doing it with that lender.This post has some good discussion on Private Lenders vs Hard Money Lenders:https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/311/topics/433920-private-lending-vs-hard-money

The next hurdle was finding financing.Ideally, the $8,800 I had accrued from the rent and security deposit would be used as my down payment.

and out of curiosity where are your short term rentals I see your in Campbell. 

I’ve been really curious about real estate for the past 5 years and that curiosity primarily comes from my involvement in Habitat for Humanity.

After 6 months, I pay the accrued interest and start making regular payments if I want, or I can defer the payments another 6 months if I need to.

So what I do first is go to my area's largest chain supermarket, Giant Eagle, and buy a gift card for Giant Eagle Supermarkets.I pay for the Giant Eagle gift card with the Barclays Mastercard, accruing their travel miles in their frequent flyer program (American offers the most flights out of Pittsburgh).I also link the purchase to my Giant Eagle rewards account, which offers me cheaper prices on gasoline at the many GetGo gas stations Giant Eagle runs all over my area.The next step is to use the Giant Eagle gift card to buy a Home Depot gift card at another or the same Giant Eagle, which means that the same purchase eventually gives me double fuel rewards (you cannot use a Giant Eagle gift card to buy another Giant Eagle gift card or of course that's what I'd be doing, again and again, until they'd be paying me to pump gas at their stations).Finally, I use the Home Depot gift card at Home Depot to buy the stuff I need.Understand, you need iron financial discipline with credit cards to run these kinds of travel and rewards hacking schemes, or sooner or later, you're going to be spending with no sure way of paying them back ON TIME EVERY TIME.

I have excellent credit and a good income, so I'm hopeful I can accrue a good amount of available money this way.I'm planning to start applying for personal LOCs at as many local banks and credit unions as I can find, and hoping for the best.

When placing the buyer's name put this "Eldrick Smith and/or Assignee"Just out of curiosity, why do you want to assign the contract and not do a double close?