can newbie rehabbers start out using other people's money?

[Linda Granville]

Hello Bigger Pockets. This forum and this website are really terrific and hoping you can help us out of our quandry. My husband and I want to flip houses. He is a licensed contractor. I am a kitchen and bath designer with remodeling experience. We know how to rehab. I spent too much money on gurus and boots on the ground (who sadly focus on wholesaling) . We did a cash out refi on our house and have a little of $20K sitting in the bank, and we also have about $30K available in credit for materials. But we can't figure out how to borrow money and actually make money on a deal. We live in Rockville, Maryland where property values are high. We are working with an investor friendly agent who is helping us to locate deals both from REO properties and wholesalers who gain properties via tax liens. Today we looked at what we thought was a good deal. A house in good condition selling for $279K with ARV of $380K. Sounds good right? But if we have to replace 2 bathrooms and a kitchen which requires opening up a wall, paint and carpet throughout, we are probably looking at $15 to $20K min for the rehab, more likely $25K. However, in this area, wholesalers are asking for a whopping $30k for earnest money. Also, we would have to use hard money with 4 points and 12% interest. When all is said and done, after paying for the financing and the real estate agent, we would net - wait for it - about $3000. :( How do newbies get started? Apparantly you can only make money in this market if you don't have to borrow money. I know that the gurus encourage wholesaling as a means to grow capital, however, wholesaling is much too hard for someone who already works about 50 hours a week. And, it appears, that having $20K in the bank is a joke in this area. It's about what I'd need for carrying costs! I'm hoping some of you have advice as to how we can approach this differently and get started with what we have. Thanks in advance.