One thing I can suggest right now is that your use of the word "flip" and 1031 in the same sentence won't work.  1031 exchanges are only available to investors who purchase property to hold for productive use in business trade or for investment.  

These folks have an intriguing product.  

I tried to do a small deal with a partner using a commercial loan (as req'd given that we'd have an LLC, etc) but we decided on these smaller deals that it wasn't worth it to partner up and use a commercial loan product...have you found this same situation in your deals?

I do think you'd find value in listening to the ideas in this podcast: http://mixergy.com/interviews/john-ruhlin-ruhlin-g...It's with John Ruhlin, founder of the Ruhlin Group which is the #1 all-time distributor of Cutco (this has nothing to do with the knife company other than him being the number one man to move product).  

Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

The MLS (and all other platforms) are full of overpriced duds and no one in the area seems to have any good product. 

Or are they using non-traditional financing to buy their properties and then refinancing with other types of products since closing with hard and private money typically require less days for closing?

Jeremy, i simply don't want the liability of potentially being personally accused of 'id theft' and the likes of 'negligent enablement' thereof in today's highly litigious America where it seems like 50% americans are prescribed some sort of psychiatrics drugs and the other half on recreational ones; and the average civilian being practically a professional 'crisis actor'. frankly, and im not even kidding, 10-20 years ago it used to be that young adults wanted to be rock stars. now its practically like every one wants to be 'lawyer'?

It seems apparent to me that actually using it to pay down debt is counter productive, until you're ready to refinance if that's your objective.It makes more sense to me to save the cash flow (true cash flow, not vacancy/maint expense savings) in a stockpile to use it when an opportunity comes along, whether that looks like a new property or an opportunity to improve either financially or physically the existing state of a income producing property.The opportunity cost of something else coming a long is probably what I'm skirting around, but in my mind it makes sense to bring in a respect for time and opportunity to the equation.I also feel like something I extrapolated from Gary Keller's Millionaire Real Estate Investor is worth sharing for anyone reading for nuggets.  

But sometimes some products just aren't right for certain people.