@Jim Adrian thanks, yes you're right. i wouldn't buy it how it is now for my primary residence. renovations for a lot of people are a huge pain too. i appreciate the feedback.

I was also mistaken about the length of time you needed to reside in your primary residence to not pay capital gains (I thought it was >12-months).

Every hard money lender I have used functioned similarly to a traditional lender in that they want you to get "pre approved".  

I have flipped one, (my primary residence) and made some very solid money on this house, about 40% profit.  

Our primary focus is commercial buy and hold but we also have a budget set aside for residential flipping projects so that we may hopefully free up some of the capital tied up in long term deals.

I have a primary residence and am looking to purchase my 1st investment property pretty soon.

We were planning on making this a primary house so we really wanted it but it needed some repairs.

This property was my primary residence while I lived in the area.  

We started with equity in our primary residence and then got a HELOC which we used for down payment and rehab cost.

Give backed loans are for primary residence purchases only.