Closed in under 30 days.

What I found is that cash buyers are half-doing their marketing campaigns because they are inundated with rehabbing properties.

@Ginny Nelson - you could probably get in under a TN visa before Trump kills NAFTA.  

Built our house with 50% down and are paying it off in under 3 years from the day we moved in (interest is not exciting enough for me to spend too much money on it).  

This could be an actual bad sign- or could be like a lot of the Memphis real estate community where they are just so inundated with out of state tire kickers that they just deprioritize out of state folks.Lastly:PinacleWest TN Credit UnionCity of Memphis Credit UnionLG&W Federal Credit UnionIndependent BankAgility FinancialAnd F&M BankAre all some combination of private credit union, do not lend to out of state, only lend in small locales, don't do commercial, and so on...

Something that will help you out a little more is to go and get a inspector to check out the house and tell you the worth now and the worth when it is restored, just make sure that you can repair and sell in under a year or you will be hit with a large intest rate. 

At least, in my world, when wholesaling, I'm mostly meeting  homeowners on a Saturday or Sunday at a house they own but do not live in and taking them away from their day off so my goal is to get in and out as fast as possible while building trust, asking questions, taking photos of every room, from every angle, as well as outside, and trying to make notes on my repair checklist in under an hour (2 at the absolute most), So, what I'm looking for is a ball park estimate to multiply square footage by in 2 categories - Exterior and Interior. 

I haven't flipped one yet where I came in under.

The problem is that the public is now educated on what is a cosmetic flip and what is a true renovation, so the cosmetic "lipstick on pig" flips sit vacant while the truly renovated homes in the $150K range sell in under 4 days for ask+.So, 20% margin, less partner cut of 50% and tax/close cost of 50% leave 5% margin for flips.

Any other suggestions for handling the situation are welcome, though I don't really want to be inundated with "do a better job picking contractors" suggestions.