Some of their top level employees had been in trouble in the past for taking bribes and using employees to work on their homes in the past.

If you spend all your time and energy into finding properties that you can sell for ridiculously low prices, you will not need to work on finding buyers/investors.

I apparently don't understand, despite being educated at the post-graduate degree level,  how to ask a question via post and get a supportive, helpful answer to a landlord problem.

Frugality, on some level, is important.  

Good luck Tony hope to get to your level once im CONUS.

I would reassess how much energy you put into your CL ad (photos, formatting, etc) and decide if it was marketed well or not.  

With flipping, you are going to have to accept some level of risk. 

I agree 10% for both is too low. 16-20% would be more appropriate depending on the level of renovation and class of property.  

So depending on price levels, this may not be an issue in the slightest.

Sustainability (because we're a nation that imports more than we export and shipping empty containers to China takes fuel) might be another reason, but by the time all the holes are cut in the steel frame and the container has been modified to live in, the embodied energy in that little container (even after taking shipping into account) is probably higher than FSC-certified stick frame construction.