Looking for some start up advice.

[George V.]

My wife and I have been looking to invest in real estate for a few years now but our situation has kept us from making any purchases yet. Here's a quick synopsis of what's going on. We're both gainfully employed (90k annual income) and have about 5k in savings. The problem for us has been a bankruptcy that we filed 7 years ago (03) that has our credit rating stuck in the mid 600's. We bought our home in 08 and probably were one of the last folks to get 100% financing. The crash later that year has left us slightly upside down. Ultimately I would like to get into rentals more than flipping with the market the way its been and with our limited access to cash. I've looked into a few hard money lenders but most require a credit rating slightly higher than where we currently are. So my question to you is what would you do in our situation? We're really looking to move away from our 9-5 jobs over the next few years and would like to become full time investors.

Thanks in advance!