While people will share a bathroom in say a 2/1 it is likely a harder sell in a 5/2 and the price you command is less. 

To answer your questions here though:Alternative options - I was going to sell all my stocks and etfs, take out a HELOC, and some credit cards to try to shoestring together enough to the deal without a hard money loan. 

Many are buying properties, doing minimal renovations to keep their crews busy, and selling with small or zero profit margins.Cash buyers are a priority.

When you mentioned selling and other investors being involved.

This property cashflows very well now, so I do not plan to sell for quite some time. 

Better sell everything and live in an underground bunker. 

And even if I do not get into the renting business I can make some profit if I decide to sell the property at some point.

By the time it was all over, the court fees, attorney fees ate up the entire EMD and then some --- this seller never intended to sell the house. 

We need the cash to mostly just tie us over untill we sell the property, so 150,000 is on the upper end; 80,000 and above would probably be sufficient. 

If you want to sell this property, you need to let someone inspect it at least once and the discount for due diligence needs to be worth it.