Having a solid emergency fund as well as eliminating any unnecessary debt will allow you to put more money aside for REI and will make you a more attractive borrower to lenders. 

With that you're in essence back at #1 though...And as @Chris Tracy said: not wanting to borrow money (at least when it's from a bank) is probably a no-go when trying to get started.

That will affect MANY borrowers, who are already miffed at the minimum $50k that seemed to be fairly standard - because there are many threads about wanting to borrow LESS!

Something to consider though are borrowing costs are higher in an LLC.

However, it will negatively impact how much money you can borrow since it will increase your DTI ratio.  

Motivated Seller list in the flip game can be a challenge to determine the quality of who  you are mailing to.  So I had the idea of just using a pool of NPN 2nds to build a database in a given market.Am I thinking th...

the markets are cyclical, I will only buy with a Minimum 40% upside, generally 50+% ARV, and I never borrow more than 60% LTV, this allows for a 20% market drop, and i still have a remaining 20% if i need to Refi.  

If it does, and you are borrowing 70% LTV, then you get a principal loan balance of $70,000 cash out.  

Having your own capital will help you borrow less and save on fees.

There are hybrid loans that may look in part at the borrower and the property and make an assessment on whether or not to write the loan.The best way to find the loan is to just start calling banks, brokers and other non-conventional lenders.