I am just curious how people scale when they don’t have a lot of liquid cash like me?  

Save your money/liquid reserves to stretch over more properties or to buy and renovate.  

, 2) it manages the properties directly so there are many hands in the cookie jar, and 3) how/when/impact if "they" decide to liquidate properties and what would be the exact impact to me? 

Recently, I sold my position in a company due to an acquisition, which liquidated $750,000.

You could find someone in the process of liquidating their portfolio and needs someplace to put their funds. 

However, some investors don't mind this strategy if they prefer not to put a lot of liquid in up front and plan to refi out within a few years of closing (which seems to be a great option with the talks of the FED reducing interest rates this year).It really comes down to investing in a growing market, in a good neighborhood & building a great team to support you.

These were investments, the value of the assest are there, its the liquid that ran short and had to resort to credit cards to fix up the propertyYou spent $50k from savings, borrowed $50k from a 401k, and are paying it back over five years at around 7.5% interest, then borrowed another $40k from credit cards and are paying that back at around 8% interest, maybe more.

@Collin Hays #7 is my favorite!

I have lumber liquidators, home Depot, Lowe's, and who knows what else near me (central CT).

That in itself is a skill and a needed over head component to keep from having investors get very antsy and then take to SM because they are not getting their e mails returned that day or next ..