Unless you're a real estate agent and can perform the short sale yourself I don't foresee one paying a "fee" to take one on- they can be very tedious, time consuming and sometimes banks will reduce commissions which makes for a whole lot of work for little pay.Now, if you could be the actual end buyer on the deal (short sale)- then that would be worth exploring.

After a few rounds of writing business plans and performing deep dive market research with the intentions of spinning up a startup together, by chance we discovered that we both share a great love and interest for Real Estate.

The buyer must perform their own inspection and due diligence before purchasing the contract from the wholesaler. 

Would love to hear who you went with and how they performed whenever you get the job done. 

Otherwise, you are dependent on others for info and to perform in the manner and at the speed you want!

If not, you may find local banks have loans that look not at the person but the performance of the property.

I was looking into working on a wholesale deal earlier in the year and was warned by a fellow local investor that if you don't perform the wholesale deal properly, you can be breaking the law in Ohio.

I prefer performing notes that pay you monthly without a servicing fee and with very little risk involved.  

Since i haven't used a 1031 exchange yet, I wasn't aware you couldn't escrow the proceeds to the next investment without taxes.If i understand you correctly this is because a flip is a short term investment and a 1031 can only be performed on long term purchases?  

Have you built financial models that allow you to quickly and easily evaluate a property and also track your investment's performance?