Find a house in decent shape and focus on the areas that will increase the value and appeal to people simultaneously. 

Simultaneous closings and assignments are your best friend.

--Become a hard money lender somehow--Figure out how to get in on an apartment building somewhere (although I'm currently trying to build a new business and don't have time to simultaneously learn another one).

Or several closings simultaneous to your sale?  

I'm planning to do double or simultaneous closings. 

The residential note field is a field filled with regulatory land mines, attorneys looking for class action lawsuits, and deadbeat borrowers spending 2-4 years living for free while simultaneously destroying the house.  

Hello,I am in the process of beginning to search for a 2-3 flat in Chicago that my wife and I can live in and simultaneously rent out the other unit(s).

In this case you buy the property with your own cash or some sort of transactional financing, and simultaneously sell it to your buyer.

The 2nd appraisal was apparently done simultaneously as the first one, as they both had the same date on them.

I am often amazed at the willingness of people to part with large sums of money with someone they don't know while simultaneously hesitating to pay a lawyer to protect them at the outset but in any case, if it helps any, you are definitely not alone.