Nervous About First Deal

[Jeff Couch]

This form is great. I really appreciate all the great advice.

My wife and I are 33/34 years old and our goal is to be able to retire from our day job at or before age 55 making 15K+ per month from rentals (traditional or BRRRRs). 

I am currently hunting for deals that will cash flow $250+ with a Cash on Cash return of 11%+ in northern Tarrant County (Fort Worth, TX & surrounding areas). I am try to stay out of any D Class neighborhood. I would prefer something that is not a complete gut job for our first deal to to lack of experience and time to manage a full remodel.

I really want to use traditional financing since I am good buddies with a mortgage broker who has taken amazing care of me in the past. However the only "good" deals I have seem to come up with are through New Western wholesale and they need to close usually within 7-14 days. They seem like they have the market cornered in Fort Worth. I have some concerns that I wanted some experienced people on the forms to explain.

1. Does anyone have another wholesale company they trust and have used in Fort Worth? Or is NW the best to focus on? I am open to other avenues like D4D, but havens tried that yet.
2. With New Western, they require 5K down within the hour after your winning bid. What happens if the title is not clean at closing? Do you lose your 5k? What other complications are you exposed to when using this kind of wholesaling? 
3. With good credit and 50k+ liquid assets, is it common to have challenges finding a hard money lender?
4. I have read about loan seasoning requirements, but does that hold true on hard money too? Or can you get a HML that is 3-6 months then refinance using the 30y conventional?
5. I think my biggest fear is loosing out on the 5K earnest money to the wholesale house. Should I be concerned with that? 

Thanks in advance.