I thought i would be buying real estate  that already existed. how would you approach investing in this yet to be built projects?

At best you get people promoting what they do or there local.

Posters will chime in on recommended strategy but real estate is extremely localized and the fundamentals of the real estate in any given market are what should be dictating your investment strategy not arbitrarily deciding to buy single family homes vs. duplexes. 

I have $70K of my own money I can use as a down-payment, but am looking for someone to finance the rest ($280K) as I'm a real estate agent and am having difficulty securing a loan from a traditional bank in a timely matter.

The real savings and benefits come when you're purchasing an existing LLC or corporation that already holds the property, rather than forming a new entity and buying the property directly.

Just getting our group out there. Its Non promotional. Open to all. We meet the first Wednesday of each month. 

I am very new to this whole real estate world, and would not even know where to start when it comes to this type of financing.

Our business real estate coach has also shared that the entire US is like that in almost all the markets.This is the first time this has happened to me.What are the recommendations?

I am no longer a licensed mortgage broker, however, I was a lender for 11 years prior to getting my real estate license. 

There are also bigger STR specific ones that will come to Austin but their fees will be tremendously higher than most local ones (check out @shelbywilray @gcalebjones for examples)