I'm sure the owner was sick of me.

You can get a normal owner occupied home loan to do this. 

I'm an independent agency owner that represents both Foremost and Obie.  

However if you are looking at commercial properties a lot of them will be owned by corps and then it will still be hard to find the actual owners!

If you qualify, you could close on the loan in days.Home 2 could be an option for a fix-and-flip as well, but you would have to have another residence because these types of loans do not allow owner occupancy.

When you’ve seen luxury remodels succeed in more modest markets, what strategies did the property owners use to ensure those high-end features stayed relevant over the long term?

What are other ways to get this property with out having to owner occupy, FHA, conventional?

I'm just not the builder on this one since the lender wouldn't finance for owner/builder. 

Quote from @Gianma Vanzo: My wife and I are HI W2 and business owners.

We simply charged 1% service fee.. so if the coupon ( in those days was 15%) We dragged 1% and divided up 14% to our fractional owners..