Agree, best bet is to find a partner or see if the owner is willing to carry the note while you operate.  

Get the seller to carry financing.  

On my spreadsheet, everything looked really good for nice ROI, appropriate safety margins built in, carry costs, etc etc.  

The major problem with the listed owner carry properties is that they are overpriced.

Is the seller willing to carry the financing?

If you are saying your mom called her home owner-occupied when it is not, beware that this is loan fraud and carries serious, no kidding, consequences!

Just have them offer you 20% carry-back financing, get qualified for the remaining 80% conventionally, proceed to purchase the property and complete the renovations, then refinance after seasoning.

I prefer owner carry sales rather then rentals, (I did rentals for 30 years)  to reduce management cost and time etc.

I posted yesterday about a lease purchase and since then I've had 3 more interested parties that would like to either lease own or seller carry, presumably because they couldnt get a bank, but they have all offered five figure down payments.The house is listed for $78K, owe $63K, 3br/1ba 1400sf, Tulsa OK.  

By hiring a GC instead of doing the work yourself it will most definitely take quicker (unless if you have prior experience in doing jobs like this), so the amount you'll pay more for the GC you can save on carrying cost and you can meanwhile use your time to do other profitable things (even if it's to continue with your current job).