National investor lenders like Lending One or Lima One are another option. 

Used a national bank for orginal purchase and HELOC. 

When I write the contract out, I was planning on saying I bought it from him for $35,000 so he can avoid capital gains.

More than likely non of this is a surprise to seller and there is a reason has not been attended to at this piont, mostly that they don't want to use their capital to do these repairs. 

Hello BP nation,It has taking us sometime but in the fall of 2016 we purchased our first rental property.

https://www.har.com/content/newsroom/Houston Real Estate Highlights in June Single-family home sales rose 1.8 percent year-over-year, with 8,518 units sold, the largest one-month sales volume of all time;Days on Market (DOM) for single-family homes declined from 50 to 48 days;Total property sales reached record levels, rising 1.7 percent, with 10,115 units sold – the first time that number has broken the 10-thousand mark;Total dollar volume increased 6.6 percent to slightly more than $3 billion;The single-family home median price rose 2.6 percent to $245,000, reaching an all-time high;The single-family home average price increased 4.3 percent to a record high of $316,463;Single-family homes months of inventory was at a 4.1-months supply, the highest level since last August and equal to the national inventory level;Townhome/condominium sales rose 4.9 percent, with the average price down 1.7 percent to $211,050 and the median price down 4.1 percent to $163,000;Leases of single-family homes climbed 4.7 percent with the average rent up 3.9 percent to $1,877;Volume of townhome/condominium leases fell 4.2 percent with the average rent up 6.7 percent to $1,662.

The $20k figure includes the financing to buy it then to sell it again including capital gains taxes and fixing a couple small things that led to be fixed.

This is more of an accounting question and it would definitely avoid capital gains.

Hi BiggerPockets Nation,I'm a relative newbie and wanted to get your thoughts.

The local banks are usually willing to do things the big national outfits are not - at least that has been my experience.Nabbing an apt building would be great, and if you could consolidate your capital in that purchase I think that is a good strategy.