Greetings all!

I would use some private money lenders who pay for the whole purchase price, then either ask for 5k in repairs or put the remaining repairs on a low interest credit card and pay off quickly. 

I have had tenants play the mental illness alcoholic card a couple times.

Check your field card. 

The IRS gives most taxpayers one get out of jail free card.

, with all the same rules, and OP is using unsecured borrowed funds for half the purchase price, which is a no-go for DFE just like swiping a credit card for a down payment is a no-go for a purchase transaction involving a conventional mortgage.After six months, DFE is no longer needed, no one will question the source of the purchase funds, and OP can go to max LTV.

Crazy as it seems, sellers in emotional distress and denial over whizzing away their parent's legacy would much rather whiz it away to a local agent who is deeply embedded in their community, who works the soft-serve at church festivals and reads off the bingo numbers at the VFW hall and brings some of his homemade kielbasi to the volunteer firemen's BBQ benefit.Do not discount your local agents who have been eating rubber chicken to pass the card at Rotary events for the last twenty years.

We put treats and a card in the fridge.

We rarely bother with that any more because: people with stable employment, good credit without late payments, not run up every card they own, no criminal record, no evictions, and present themselves as nice, decent people are generally not psychopaths once they get into their unit.

Missing a good deal is way better than getting a good deal and then all your cards crumble from a couple vacancies and a lack of reserves.