Even flips are tough because we're seeing lots of people trying to buy cheap, driving up "wholesale" prices while retail prices haven't seen any upward movement.

Especially in these robust market times, quick movement is necessary!

With the house being built in the late 50's and the neighborhood having soil movement there was definitely a list of issues that needed to be taken care of.  

One has shown very little movement over the last 7 months but the other should close soon.My goal is to pick up 5 to 7 properties in the next 4 years to creat a new cash stream and utilize to augment my retirement annuity.Scott

Ideally, if you're flipping, you want to be in a subdivision with "sales velocity" (movement of homes).

One solution was to have an HOA (obviously this was a larger operations than an 8-plex), but it was perpetually under-funded.Can you provide some additional details?

There are other lenders, but it depends on how fast you want to move, how comfortable you are with a bank vs. a non-bank lender (like a Movement Mortgage or Loan Depot etc...).  

Remember big complexes always have available units so their ads stay up perpetually.

Also it might not be a bad idea to get qualified with Movement Mortgage.

I don't see much movement, but you probably want to put vertical braces on that wall and maybe epoxy the crack.