He opened up my Eyes to a whole new approach that I had not thought about even attempting.

As is, if you approach a private lender you can secure their loan with a new project.

If we jump in and really become bit more analytical.

My opinion is you need to approach the situation as a professional investor.

I would prefer the hands on approach and sticking to investing in your area because renting a property can come with all kinds of problems such as bad tenants who end up trashing the place.

First way to approach this is to look at the cost of money from your different sources.  

Is this how I should approach this?

If you do not want to put up application fee then there is no further action.Before you approach a lender find out all their requirements and terms first.

It sounds pretty straight forward but is there anything to be particularly cautious of when approaching these kinds of deals?

I have tried a couple of approaches but can't seem to nail the correct message.I based my design and message on a sample postcard I posted here in BP that had good success as per the user.Below is the landing page screenshot.