Bird Dog First? Or keep trying to find 100% funding (does it even exist)?

[Shane Woods]

Howdy! I'm a new investor in Weatherford, TX. I want to concentrate on rehabbing and flip.

As my credit score is 580, and my wife is back in school (no savings, etc)...I'm having trouble finding 100% funding for that 1st deal. I've found several houses which I think would work well for fix and flip, but they slipped away before I could find the funding.

I keep hearing about building a small cash reserve by bird-dogging for others, but if there's 100% hard money to come by in DFW area, and the numbers work for a high interest rate, back end points, etc...I would prefer to "jump right in". I have an experienced mentor I'll be working with who owns rental property, has done rehabs in the past, and also owns his own HVAC business and knows every contractor in town. I have the tools and support system to make this business work. I just need to the funding for that 1st deal (and maybe the 2nd, since the 1st one will be unGodly expensive financing most likely :D )

Sorry to be so wordy...any and all suggestions appreciated.

~Shane