I would provide owner financing at $85k with 25% down.I erred by buying too many properties at once and further erred by trying to rehab 4-5 properties simultaneously and didn't get all of them completed.

As for bank owned I have found that many agents have cash buyers lined up and when the property is listed it goes to contingent almost simultaneously. 

I've also considered asking around for a personal or business loan to start real estate investing so I can build my credit simultaneously --- although I don't think it would work since my credit is under 600.

The way I understand it, the wholesaler is arbitraging the market by getting into contract at a below market price, selling it for market value, use the mortgage company to cover the cost of acquisition and close simultaneously with us.

To be a broker is to either be an intermediary between two parties, or to be the agent of one of the parties.To wholesale a property is to represent only yourself as a buyer or seller.Realtors argue that wholesalers never intend to purchase the property themselves, therefore they are merely disguising their brokering activities.If a wholesaler's to complete the purchase, and then turn around and sell the property, no one would say this was a brokerage activity.If the wholesaler where to use a simultaneous closing to buy and sell, few would consider this brokering.It is when wholesalers put a property under contract with no intent to close the transaction themselves, only to assign the contract to someone else for a profit, and to back out should they not be able to find a buyer, that people believe that this begins to look more like brokering than investing.Since it would require meeting a difficult burden of proof for a prosecuter to successfully prosecute a wholesaler for brokering without a license, and because the resulting penalties for conviction are so light, and because a direct "victim" is hard to find, that most wholesalers will never be bothered by the legal authorities, even if they live in a state where the real estate commission considers wholesaling to be brokering.

My advise is to be doing both simultaneously, and as others have pointed out if you find a good deal then the money/partners will fall in line.Seth and Ned asked some great questions, and I would focus on what value you add to your potential partner (I think the answer here is "the deal", assuming you find one), and what value they can add to you and your project (money?  

This is actually how Cozy works - you don't have to handle the money, and both the landlord and tenant get copies of the reports simultaneously so you know that they didn't alter it in any way.  

Then there are simultaneous closes that I've heard of.

If I had friends who were doing bigger deals like that, I could throw my investment dollars in with them and grow them and gain the skills and knowledge to do it myself simultaneously, but I'm basically boot-strapping everything myself, so....

Trying to close near-simultaneous with two different lenders on two different properties is also going to eternally complicate your life.