I've seen some promising properties but have yet to be able to purchase one for a variety of reasons. 

My current agent, while seemingly very knowledgeable about investing in the Baltimore area, has become very poor at communicating and following up with promised info.  

If you have any realtor friends see if they will help you and promise to take care of them on the back end for there time.

Also, your question, about where these companies get their leads from, are you asking that because their leads are not what they promise they are?

May see more funds instead of syndicated offerings after Title IVI'm sure we'll all learn more about this in the coming several months, but it sounds promising.  

Then, if your contract expires, it just expires, no false promise was ever made, no lies, no false implications, no conniving or fudging because you can't belly up to the owner and negotiate a deal they will agree to sell at, to anyone.

I  guess a wholesaler could run into a legal issue depending on how he represented himself or verbally promised a seller or buyer.  

As with anything, building a strong foundation will keep your building standing, i.e. performing on each of your promises to pay the lenders will enable you to scale private money.Hard money is also a resource, it does cost more but certainly viable so long as you have capital to contribute. 100% loans for first time borrowers will prove to be difficult (almost impossible).

I don't make any promises I can't keep, and one of those promises is never getting the house sold in less than 30 days.

I like knowing I can close like I promised regardless of if I can "find a buyer".