I agree with above posts on educating yourself and learning the different strategies of investing.Start networking and creating relationships with like minded individuals in your local market.

Quality individuals are hard to find and the wages they can command are also very pricey.  

Maybe they'll pay closing costs or offer repair credits.Sounds like they are not super motivated to sell though and you are getting a bit 'deal horny'.  

Vetting these is much easier as the product type is much more homogeneous nationwide. 

There are some very reasonably priced laminate and vinyl products out there (there are also some crazy expensive options that are pretty sweet). 

It's better to lose individual properties instead of multiple investments at the same time.  

That might shed some like on their potential lack of motivation.

The fact that it's free for an individual freelancer without employees is also nice.

What type of loan product are you using?  

Many times each lender can offer different products.