I realize that liquid funds are one of my biggest obstacles to doing more business and I'm curious to know how others have raised funds.

You will hear it from the anti-leverage group but they have a valid point for investors who don't consider the back-end discussion of liquidity and reserves. 

Too many things can go wrong to lose my money.Next few: does the borrower have some liquidity, friends or relatives in the business, how knowledgeable are they in general.

It takes about a minimum 3-400,000 liquid to play on what I focus on and then an investor would have to make payments until the rent deposits take over.. on my smallest deal I have in mind.

Same reason I am in the process of liquidating all non-commercial in the Peoples Republic of California.

They may not care that it has limited liquidity as compared to a publicly-traded security.

I have a rental property that I could pay off if I liquidated my TSA and IRA.  

Instead I'd focus on the dirty work of marketing & prospecting for deals, & sooner or later you're going to find a motivated seller (ex older investor with lots of equity looking to liquidate portfolio) who'll do seller financing.

I've got some liquid cash plus pre approvals on conventional and hard money loans.

This tends to weed out the small investor, because there is typically not enough liquidity in their corner.