I am not pleased with the change to 6-months, so I may be in your shoes soon as well.  

Now if the area is so soooo soooooooo bad the owners with vacant properties don't even bother to market those vacancies, I don't know what to tell you.If I were in your shoes I'd call a couple of property management companies.

You can always shoe them your blank contracts.

@Anne Faber If I were in your shoes I would probably take the following approach: Try using a service like Angie's List to find 2-3 handymen/contractors that can walk through the property with you and provide you a bid based on a clear scope of work to get the house up to the condition you are looking for.

I would get very excited in your shoes on this opportunity.

If I'm in your shoes - I'm probably keeping the house as-is and renting it out, ignoring the equity that you've created.  

We buy at significant discounts, so there's immediate equity to mitigate the risk of a drop in the market…" Put yourself in the lender's shoes.

.$0.23/lf for shoe mouldingI like the $25 a gallon oil-based gloss paint sold at Walmart (rustoleum brand)

Breaking down participants to buy or fund your note is selling a security, they need to participate together in making the loan to you, which puts them in the shoes of a lender, much easier in a commercial loan than a consumer loan now. 

You may need someone more diligent and thorough.I've done HVAC and it's no fun crawling around in a hot attic, or scraping the tar and gravel off your shoes when you come down off the roof.