Couple things that come to mind are schedule a regular landscaping company to trim the lawn, make sure utilities are on but shut the water off at the meter just in case there is an interior water break the property wont be damaged, make sure your insurance covers a vacant property and or a vacant property undergoing construction, if its in a bad area you may want to consider an alarm system (i use simply safe because you can install it yourself and use it on other properties as needed) leave some exterior and interior lights on and finally have someone go and check on the property once in a while if its going to be sitting.

For exterior improvements, you can do these whenever you want.

First you don't see that many notes from there as opposed to midwest and south east states, and second, north eastern states usually scare people because of taxes and liberal courts.- They could have found a buyer and then he backed out, which happens.You would have to be more detailed but these are a handful of basic reasons why some notes sit.

If so I would use one of those as opposed to arguing up the EMD tree.

I would probably sell as opposed to pulling out the equity if that were the case.

My partner and I currently have about 100k in funds available, so we would like to test the waters in hard money lending as opposed to just letting that money sit in cash. 

I have seen Due on Sale clauses get exercised by lenders.Also, as @Steve Vaughan suggests, you can be creating title insurance issues, especially if you use a Quitclaim Deed, as opposed to a Warranty Deed.The bottom line is simple.

Maybe check total return as opposed to just cash flow.

Get the property 100% especially the exterior to the point where no major cap improvements are needed for the foreseeable future - this is what enables less tenant phone calls and problems with the property and gives you more time to focus on growing your empire.

🙄 WHY on earth,  if you are so opposed to arbitrage, do you even bother to read these threads?!?