Is owning this vacant lot enough skin in the game for a private money lender to see that I'm risking to lose as well?

They have more skin in the game then you do.Make sure you get clear title.

Odds are pretty good most people with that much skin in the game aren't risking it all to rip off some California dude on a furnace repair lol.

Though my guess is online banks only do bench top. also know that banks almost universally want heloc appraisals to be conservative due to the nature of the debt (revolving) 

Second, this go-between has no liability or skin in the game.

@Simon Stahl First, you did not quote Paragraph 6 of Regulation D of Rule 501 correctly: "Any natural person who had an individual income in excess of $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with that person's spouse in excess of $300,000 in each of those years and has a reasonable expectation of reaching the same income level in the current year;"If you make $220k per year, for the last 2 years, and you marry someone with no income, that does not mean that you are NOT accredited now.

If your skin is that thin this isn't going to work out well when banks toss you and your cockamamie ideas out into the street. 

The investors doing a very large portion of the deals are professional in nature leaving lower risk of default or collapse. 

Naturally, I had to work with a real estate agent and someone that took care of my financing.

It was a hard process and I got the financing by the skin of my teeth and mostly because of how savvy my mortgage broker is, to say the least.