Need help figuring out my finances.

[William Kelly]

I sat down with a REA and explained to him that I want to do a fix and flip. I explained this will be my first deal and how I've been studying Real Estate for some months now. I called USAA to get a loan but he explained that USAA doesn't normally give out fix and flip types of loans especially if the property needs extensive work. What loan company can I go through to find the right kind of finances for what I need? I have 35k liquid cash and am looking to purchase a fixer upper in about the 30-70k range with the ARV looking to be maybe around 120-140k. The REA said I should look into setting up an LLC. Where do I go to setup an LLC? And what exactly is it? He also said to look into opening a line of credit with the bank to show proof of funds every month? I don't quite understand this. Now that USAA ran my credit score to try to get a loan am I suppose to go somewhere else and have them run it again? Won't that lower my credit score? I didn't have my contractors in line but I figured I would call them once I got to that stage. It seemed like I wasn't quite prepared to talk with him but since it's my first property he was asking a lot of questions that I was I didn't know because I'm new to everything. It was pretty intimidating.

[Dan Schwartz]

William, if you are serious about being the lead on this first flip, read J Scott's book in flipping. You can make it through it in one long session to get the broad overview, and then go back and read it slowly to concurrently map out your plan.