No zero need waste of time and money 

As you probably know commercial lending on CRE is not the easiest task right now, then add all the complications to it...foreign buyer, new LLC, new bank accounts, etc and that probably cuts out a lot of lenders who will be interested.Also find out what their goals are to determine if what they want is even feasible. 

How are you filtering opportunities down to a manageable list if the 1% rule isn’t cutting it?

You’ll also pay transaction fees disposing the asset, likely in the $40k+ range.I don’t think you have a clear-cut answer here, but you’ll need to rack up all the financial trade-offs to make an informed decision.

Would rather have these renters than my buddy’s who used a chainsaw to cut the sink out when they left.  

With short term rentals, you tend to take a larger cut as there are many things involved in the day to day upkeep, think 12-25%.

Buying a condo seems like a huge waste, whereas multi-family gives some cash flow to neutralize my monthly payments.

Start cutting the favoritism, the golden net's, remove hurdles for small business launch, remove corporate favoritism and watch things correct themself. 

If I was in your shoes, I wouldnt waste my time with an unqualified buyer.

Court house step auction was a waste of time as the REO bank would step in and bid a price equal to the mortgage when they did not receive a bid equal to the unpaid mortgage.The other issue is I often cannot view many of the properties as they have squatters.