Your elderly owner will need to go down to the court house and file eviction action for non payment of rent. which will take several weeks to get scheduled and she will have to pay a filing fee for that.

There is very little room if any for negotiation unless you are coming in all cash with a super fast closing scheduled. 

These are items that are usually over $2k and follow a depreciation schedule.

There is always someone who will go for any deal, but I would say that is generally not a good deal for the lender.Lenders generally want a guaranteed return, a schedule for repayment, and collateral.Equity partners are generally willing to forego the guaranteed and scheduled return in exchange for a piece of the upside.Also, if you are borrowing the rest of the money from a traditional lender, they probably won't go for this either.

My partner and I will be starting to make some phone calls and scheduling meetings this week!

Schedule a home inspection.  

If I had a good project manager who could deliver 48 or 86 rehabbed house I could get them funded at 10% interest, I could find enough deals as well, getting a quality rehab done on budget and on schedule is a much bigger problem for me. 

I have to call her today to schedule our meeting and I think I'll use that strategy.. thank you :) @teddysmith what made the wholesalers you have come in contact with seem sketchy?

As a tax preparer, if you told me you had this arrangement with the sellers, I wouldn't record this as mortgage interest on your Schedule E, I'd record it as other interest.  

You need to automate your schedule, but not the process.