@Ravi Ramphal, a good friend of mine is find of saying, "you can't swing a dead cat in this town (Austin) without hitting a Realtor or massage therapist," and he's not far off.

They sat at the table with us and made an offer on the spot:  $150,000 as is (several projects including gutted master bath are still in progress, and he said he can manage those). 

I would look into both those options, if those are not on the table, a partner with the funds/half the funds would be another good option as well.

While there is no certainty until the money hits the closing table, there are better ways to find legitimate lenders.

My investor ended up bringing very little money to the closing table.

You bring something to the table, even as a new investor, and you take stuff from the table.

She has some cash offers on the table, but isn't really in a rush to sell and wants to try and get as much as she can.

Hey @Scott Gordon yeah, move on and scope out a better agent...spend some time interviewing and think about what value you can bring to the table.

I have a potential wholesale deal on the table.

If OP elects de minimis safe harbor ("DMSH"), he's going to have to capitalize as the expenditure is going to be more than $2,500.If OP forgoes the DMSH and instead applies the Betterment, Adaptation, and Restoration tests ("BAR tests") under the tangible property regs, we'd almost certainly have a betterment and/or restoration of the HVAC subsystem on our hands, so we'd also capitalize under this option.OP may be able to use the safe harbor for small taxpayers ("SHST") to expense the costs, however not enough information was given by OP.If SHST is off the table due to limitation, then must capitalize.