Negative #1, you need two years of 1099 income proof to qualify for a traditional type home mortgage. 

RIETs don't traditionally take commodity risk.

Subsequently have purchased >18 more doors through traditional means.

Good economic prospects, decent rent to buy ratio (notwithstanding the current housing bubble that has put a bit of a squeeze on traditional leases), and most importantly, properties available for low, low prices.

Traditional financing, hard money?  

Is there another creative solution to funding the rebab portion of this REO deal using money we already have in 401k, traditional and Roth IRA?

Leverage other people’s money at a low interest rate without actually borrowing their money so they can continue to earn a high interest rate on it in the stock marketI’m doing an LMA for the down payment and traditional 30-year fixed mortgage for the rest.

Significantly more to the point that if he had gone with a traditional realtor, he would have come out on the winning end of the deal.  

Traditional mortgage How did you add value to the deal?

The new one's are pretty cheap and let you put all your properties into separate liability compartments which really supplement the insurance a lot more cost effectively than having a bunch of separate LLC's. https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/the-traditional-llc-vs-the-series-llc-which-is-better-for-real-estate-investors/