Especially the petty ones that are a complete waste of time, money, and peace of mind!

How do you find these distressed home owners without paying a ton of money for some of these lists?

It's a great way to increase your net worth and these loans can also be used to pull cash out of a property as it appreciates allowing you to reinvest money into new deals.Happy to connect to discuss further. 

Use your least tax-efficient money to buy your most tax-efficient assets. 

The MOST successful will probably not be because they are able to raise more money than they can successfully invest from passive investors - so why incur the hassle.  

(then you also don't need to worry about the time crunch of a 1031I would suggest just selling and sitting on the money until a truly attractive offer comes your way.

I see the money but can't get my foot in the door. 

Investors pool money to purchase assets within the fund.

But I wanted to buy 1-2 short term rentals with the money.  

Maybe some specialty programs exist for prefab homes or a custom ADU builder might have his own lender partner they could refer you to... but unless you yourself are an experienced home builder with a track record in ground-up construction, you're basically looking at a hard money or a HELOC.