You can find plenty of cash-flowing deals in multiple cities here in Ohio. 

Even if I was the senior lender for one of the new developments, in a downside scenario I wouldn't know what to do with the land / the half-finished or finished (but unsale-able for whatever reason) inventory.Therefore - I don't want to invest / make a loan in the development JV itself - I would rather make a loan at the parent-co level where there is collateral in the form of completed properties that are generating rental cash flow - they do have mortgages on them. 

For instance, the heloc property could be a rental that is producing enough cash flow to make the heloc payments, so it can pay for itself and not depend on the other purchase.  

You are in line with your thinking on some newer banks and/or coffee drive through shops. 

If rent is greater than PITI, they believe they have a cash flow positive property.  

Lastly, this loan would need to be heavily dependent on the actual property instead of my tax returns as I just quit my job a few months back to go full-time into Real Estate.Hey Wil,A lot of information to sift through, but honestly I think your toughest element is the 'at or around 8%' right now.

Deal flow? 

You can always network with other PM's as well through NARPM.

The program worked well in our case, and we are roughly half-way through our 3 year obligation.

You now know your cash flow and what you can take out.Investors' problems sometimes include not budgeting correctly for repairs and maintenance and not factoring in a set amount that they will be contributing to their reserve account for CapEx (if you have CapEx repairs coming up sooner than later, put away more money into reserves now).To summarize, factor in all expenses and your monthly deposit into your reserve account before calculating your monthly cash flow.