Even though an all cash offer is lower it screams CERTAINTY OF CLOSE versus the risk of underwriting a borrower for a loan and the deal falls apart.It depends on how long you want to wait before you can refi out if that strategy works for you or not.What is your particular strategy for buying the smaller rental houses versus other assets classes if you have that kind of capital to work with??

After all you're borrowing that money from yourself.   

You'd think that a deceased borrower on an upside down property would be enough motivation for a lender to work the short sale.  

Second, I'm not even sure how to go about borrowing money from foreign soil.

I went through a borrowed copy of Carleton Sheets course, but I felt like that left me with waaayy too many questions to actually pursue a real estate deal.

Add 10% to your conservative budget and borrow that amount from the bank. 

Under this scenario, you would have mortgages (currently 740+ credit gets you 4.875% on a 30-yr), but you would also have 25% - 30% equity (or more if borrowing created anxiety for you) to alleviate much of the risk.  

In MF, I see lenders typically looking at the financial capacity of the property (from 1.15 to 1.3X cash flow relative to debt service on multifamily (MF), along with the borrower's experience.) 65-75% LTV.

If you may consider the above then you're probably going to want to have the VAFF (VA funding Fee) included in your rate instead of being financed into your loan because that will increase the cost of borrowing to you and your family in the short run.These percentages above are based on the loan amount so a 200,000 loan amount with 2.15% VAFF or VA funding fee is $4,300 dollars that would normally be financed into your loan. 

You need a license to work between a Borrower and Mortgagee where you are neither party and plan on collecting a fee.