The realtor was avoiding the properties I had on the list because of how bad the crime was in neighborhoods and how often HVAC condensers were stolen or broken into, and she was trying to look out for my best interest. 

Do hard money lenders avoid any deals with seller financing?

You can avoid a lot of capital gains with a 1031 exchange.

Regardless, if somebody is deceptive about their past I certainly would want to avoid investing with them. 

I wouldn’t do a rehab for a first time investment, but it doesn’t have to be totally turnkey to make money and also avoid stress.

@Jay Hinrichs  I have a few rentals already leveraged at a modest ~60% LTV, and my W2 is with the military and due to living frugaly I am able to save ~3k/month from the military income alone and have more than enough cash reserves so I am not worried in the least about being overstretched and unable to pay the loan.Even if you are able to buy a property at a discount, a 25% downpayment is still relatively expensive so the ability to avoid that problem would be nice. 

@Wesley W.if you serve someone a three day notice and after three days you start the eviction process and they make a deposit into your account. it will avoid the eviction process and you'll lose out on the money that you spent with the attorney and have to start all over again

You can hear real-world examples of how others have built their investment portfolio and (hopefully) learn to avoid their mistakes.4.

@Michelle Truong My first bit of advice is to avoid the price range you gave. 

A transfer to an LLC will trigger the clause and should therefore be avoided, even though banks are hesitant to ever foreclose as long as the note is being paid.