It may never happen, but nevertheless, I am determined for now to do what I can to find that one property which will allow me to start my journey into RE investment world.My advise to you is this: have a thick skin.

No lender does 100% regardless of the rate since you have to have skin in the game.

I've talked to other lenders in the past who wanted us to have a certain amount of skin in the game because of our lack of experience. 

Or does this interfere with the "skin in the game clause?"

Has worked well for me but finding motivated sellers willing to keep some skin in the game for 18 months to 36months is tough since there are so many buyers.

His skin would be: it's local to him, cross country for me,  so he'd manage and rehab, and the 29k is coming from him at $500/month til done.

HML may finance purchase and rehab and some may want you to have some skin in the game in the form of a down payment.  

I'm still mulling this over myself), then you can still get some skin in the game and start building a portfolio that hopefully won't take long to grow and trade up through 1031 exchanges and so on to start purchasing the more expensive SFR, as well as MFR, which is when it appears to me you'll really start to hit your investing stride and bring in meaningful cash flow. 

Yes, this stuff was much more a reality back before the real estate bust...the gurus haven't updated their courses, I guess...These days (as Bill indicated), banks aren't generally going to allow the seller to carry-back a portion of the loan -- they're going to want to see the buyer have some skin in the game.As for seller financing, it exists...it's just *really* tough to find.

I have skin of an aligator :)That actually is one of the main reasons that I signed up and posted.