Have a good contract in place to protect yourself and make sure they are performing on time and withing the budget--add stipulations such as $50 will be discounted for every day is over...etc.

I am learning from BP everyday from people’s comments, hopefully someone can help me on this one too.

I am not saying that finding a provider to do the sort of loan that you wanted is easy , but I will be really surprised if you put in efforts and make some 50 calls , and still didnt find another broker .You worked hard and did a great job increasing the equity , now every day , you are not taking advantage of that equity , you are loosing out , your broker need not have that urgency .So in general , if you see the process taking longer than necessary ( with some allowance for unexpected things ) - you got to move fast .

The trick alot of GCs do is they know your out of state and not going to be at the site everyday, so they take your money and say I'll get around to that job when I can, in the meantime they are spending your money on a boat they just bought. 

I think of it every day myself.

I talk to apartment owners everyday and most of the time the average age of the owners excluding outliers is around 80 and they say they want to hold on for the income because they are retired or that they never will sell any of their portfolio, but eventually if you keep calling it’s a numbers game you’ll eventually find someone looking to sell it just may take you over a 100 phones calls.

It's what an investor realtor does every day. 

I don't think there is any question that it can be done and is done every day. 

(I realize most people don't care about this, but I figured I would point it out.)Places where I think something like this might be a good idea are...A summer house / vacation house / short-term rental that doesn't always have somebody living in it every day, especially if it's somewhere where it can freeze in the winter. 

Everyday, I quickly analyze a few homes in my area to catch a great deal.