My short term goal is to buy my first property within the year as soon as I can learn and figure out what is even going on haha.  

However, if your looking for short term flip or even long term capital appreciation maybe not so much.I am a cash flow guy, but you will need to embrace property management and taking on Section 8 has other challenges as well.  

I personally would prefer to do my deals with a private lender at 20% rather than a hard money lender, but you need a track record with real estate before you can attract the attention of one. 

While it does present an issue in the summer months, doing a short term rental or Air B/B may be a possibility for the summer depending on the area. 

Capital is going to be the key, which is where we're short.

Does anybody have no-seasoning lenders OR short term financing options that are not 11%+pts?

They probably won't find another place int hat short amount of time and if they do, you probably don't want them as a tenant anyway.Your one thing that will make it easier on yourself sounds like a bullet point list of simple questions to ask.

Irrespective of the merits of any of these predictions though, it never hurts to have your financial house in order by aggressively paying down debt, building up cash reserves, and positioning oneself to capitalize on attractive asset prices, whether that's from a downturn/correction/crash or just from spotting an opportune deal that will do well in any economic environment. 

shortly after shoot them a text letting them know you just emailed them and would like to set up a phone conference.

Seriously though, this sounds like something an REO bank would do on a short sale approval.