So I turned up at the county courthouse this morning with cashier's check and extra cash in hand to go up to $5k over asking. 

Home buying and wholesaling is not about quick cash.

at 3% those properties were cash flowing, but 7% puts them underwater.How would you go about finding properties that meet the above criteria?

I've created a very thorough pitch deck explaining the project with pretty decent returns for LPs (20+% cash on cash returns) but seem to have exhausted the normal circles I run in and apparently I can't really expand them without running afoul of the SEC...?

@Michael Keffer your strongest position and calculation is when you have a full year where the property has cash flowed

The cash flow is good but people have complained either it was too old, or bad area. 

One suggestion would be to offer the seller a chunk of cash extra to offer the tenants a keys for cash option.

Getting money after you have a number of flips under your belt can be fairly easy and all the higher volume and/or higher dollar flippers we know eventually run out of cash.

Also any STR locations that are viable options fron cash flow perspective and friendly regulations?  

These are areas where you can cash flow in Columbus because the rent-to-price ratio is favorable.