your own personal experience is important. if you don't have skin in the investment, you should at least have skin in the business.

Until you have a track record borrowing from HMLs you'll likely need to invest some some of your own money in the deal to have some skin in the game.

Some will insist you have some skin in the game for fear of you walking away from a deal gone bad.

They probably want 240 so that their clothes will dry faster.  

There are a ton of hard money lenders in SoCal that may be willing to look at your deal and tell you if they would lend on it and under what terms ... most will want to see some skin in the game from you in terms of down payment and/or funding repair costs. 

Their view is you have no equity or skin in the game if the asset stops performing and you're more likely to walk away and hand them the keys. 

See #2What you are trying to do is basically avoiding any of your own skin in the game.  

The house is ~2,000 sq ft and needs a lot of cosmetic stuff done: painting, floor installation, dry wall repair, kitchen and bathroom remodeling, possible siding work, and some landscaping. 

Yes there are people who are paying too much for properties that will fix them up and flip them at a potential loss, but unless there is 100% financing then they will lose their skin in the game and the lender/investor will still make it out of the transaction.

When high rollers pass away or just improve their old ones are a couple bucks, get them dry cleaned for a couple bucks and bam, dressed for success cheaper than Walmart.