If you have cash, you can buy a home with cash, so you skip the hard money lender, and then refinance.  

And if you don't have a lockbox, realtors will often skip showing your house since scheduling those showings are always PITAs to schedule and then you've got someone home often times following you around.

If I sign over the deed, how do I ensure the buyer doesn't skip out on payment?  

Frankly if you think something that unlikely is going to happen then skip real estate and just buy the lottery ticket, it is much easier.How can one get a 'real' private lenders to fund the deal or where can one get partners to partner or JV with the investor to do the deal and split the profits?

I'm willing to skip trace the owners.

Unless you have the time to read and consume every post, just use your time wisely and skip over the bashing if you can.

I skip cable and satellite TV and watch things on occasion on Hulu.

On that budget, I'd skip the extra phone line, website and probably signs.  

in fact, if you are directing renters and sellers to your website via craigslist, letters, etc, why not just move the sellers/renters links off the home page, since your marketing for this secondary market is directing them to an internal page.in your latest news section on some pages you mix listings with news articles (not good) but when you click on a news article, the sidebar widget separates between latest news and latest listings (good).skipping back to the sellers/renters/buyers pages, there is no call to action in the body.

Utility companies should not be able to come after landlords for tenant debt.Housing assistance should be temporary.Permitting should be made simple enough that people aren't forced to skip it out of necessity.