It saved a lot of time and money. 

Find a house for sale where the owner owes no money (nationally, about 40% of homes are owned free and clear).  

If they have the money, they have the money.

Private money lenders, search on Facebook groups and meetups and they can fund it but interest would be around 12 percent though and they may look for collateral

view=publicIt's a 3 bed 2 bath house, almost 100 years old, and the seller made a bunch of updates to the house (fixed roofing, foundation, re-ran electrical wiring, redid flooring, and interior paint) prior to me moving in.So far, I've added a dishwasher to the place, and here are my thoughts as far as other "value adds" go, but I don't want to invest the money if you guys and gals don't think there's much opportunity for a return on it...

If so, lending this money puts his home and, presumably, his family at risk.

., this I think is longer term implosions as I am seeing people who absolutely should not be buying a home as they have no money buy them sub-to because of little down payment and will eventually lose the property and that is when many whose mortgages are still on the property come out and sue.

@Melissa Odom private money has been awesome for me and helped me grow my portfolio tremendously.We used it to do BRRRR where we bought the property with private money, rehabbed it with that money too and refinanced as soon as we could to get them their money back.Our private money lender was happy because they made their return and didn't have any worries because we were an easy borrower.

Can I just let them choose how they want to get the money into the account?

@Tonia EdgestonIf it’s non owner occupied you could get a hard money loan to pay back taxes and repairs but these are short term (typically 6-12 months) then you would need to refinance the propertyYou mention this is also in probate - depending also on other debts etc it all may be for not and you may need to sell to pay off other creditors.