We tried letters but rarely got a response.

Surely combined, the people who have read this know more than 2 hard money lenders.Come on folks -- give us a hand and help your local hard money lender out by sharing them with us so we can get them all set up in our list -- there is no cost for lenders to be added; we want this list to be complete with everyone to help the investors out here.

I then plan to save the cash flow and combine it with my savings to then purchase a home for myself and down the road purchase more income/investment property.

I would look toward this strategy maybe in combination with paying off any consumer debt you may have.

Tips I've gathered so far are a combination of the following: challenge property taxes, shop for cheaper insurance premium, refi loan(s).

What I want to do is combine the two mortgages and take advantage of the current low interest rates so that I can put a little cash into my pockets each month.

With us, they can have no risk (contingencies int he contract to protect them), do no work (with a POA, our attorney handles the closing and we do all the legwork) and they get anywhere from $10,000-$100,000 on a deal (depends on the spread).We also help the homeowner because the combination of our attorney and using the charity enables us to hasten the short sale process (we had one approved in 2 weeks).We do tell the banks that this is a fundraiser for the charity, but we don't tell them the number.

It could be that I run a small business and that I'm in Georgia or a combination of the two, but it looks like it's a California specific thing from what I saw briefly.

Whatever combination of bank statements and pre-approval (no pre-qualification) from lenders.

Again, you would not NEED $2000 in rent on a $100k purchase to have successful positive cash flow as pointed out above, so why look for something that would rarely exist!