There have been numerous people on BP talking about how they paid application fees but they could never get their loans closed on any deal brought to the company.

Spend at least 2 hours per day researching online about your desired investment strategies.

What you paid for it and invested in its upkeep are not factors for pricing/selling a property. 

I cashed out one little condo (rental property) at a time and paid the the taxes to do so.

My number one piece of advice is finding a group that you can attend online or in person to keep you motivated and accountable to your goals. 

Nor have I been able to find an online application that I can fill out. 

The builder refuses to send them to you.They state they are 'restricted' or send the type of layout you see online, just boxes, nothing the designer can use.

--I would agree that this market has opportunities for seller finance as a record number of properties in the US are paid off. 

@Jeremy Dugan Technically, you can structure it anyway you want (and based on if the numbers work), but I mostly see seller fin deals where there's a disconnect between the buyer and seller about today's value and the 2 parties ultimately agree to the seller's higher sale price ($448k in your case), but with some lower cash amount paid upfront and then the remainder would be paid at maturity through the refinance at the then appraised value.

I  bought my first flip for $120k (in hindsight, I probably paid $15k too Much).