After mailing for 3 months now, every lead that's come through has received 8-10 essentially identical letters from other investors, some that mail every two weeks.I know there's a market there, but I've thought about changing strategy and coming at it from a realtor angle, who can get them the most money for the property or make a cash offer.My original intent was to wholesale these leads, but when so many cash buyers are already mailing them I've been priced out of a few because of the wholesale fee.Do you solely offer the cash option?

As I understand it the security deposit is essentially meant to cover expenses at move out.

With a driveway bridge (essentially).

Essentially, if you invest with the eyes of an underwriter and know how to assemble info about the deal (data-drive info, not smack: photos/video, sales comps, rental comps, cash flow summary in case you can't flip it, comprehensive rehab scope, security instrument samples and default steps for the lender to feel safe (define the worst-case scenario), your experience/bio, etc.  

If you are like me, left the corporate world after about 20yrs, I loved the aspect of investing in RE, even bought a handful of SFRs and duplex, fourplexes...learned a lot....but had I know I could invest w/experts as a passive investor and get returns equal to or greater than DIY investing, I would have got into large apartment investing earlier.If you are accredited, there are experienced folks that know how to find the right markets, deals, and execute essentially value add re-positioning of older apartments (like flipping but more sophisticated and over a 3-5 yr period).  

You lose a few percent in bitcoin fees, but you can essentially take out unlimited amounts of money in cryptocurrency. 

You can essentially finance the whole deal if it's good enough for them.

There was also a man in Texas that purchased a dam that surrounded his property,  (you have probably seen it being in your line of work), I thought that was interesting, but of course not very practical on a routine basis, but I wondered if something of that nature could be applied in a similar fashion to hurricane shutters.... i.e. you install hurricane shutters and your premium goes way down and they essentially pay for themselves in a couple of years.

From my understanding this is essentially the capacity which a lead investor holds.

Essentially, you got paid to do all this and own a property with 25% equity (loan to value of 75%).You can now take your original investment of $44K + your profit of $18,500 and go buy another property and do it all over again.If you can pull this off it would a home run!!