Advice on the best way to enter a new area

[Trina Seever]

It's been awhile since I've posted, I love trolling but am usually too busy sheet rocking and such to actually post anything :)  But I'm kind of looking for advice from investors who do a little different line of work than I do...WARNING this is going to be really long, because I'm not good at condensing my stories.

Background:  My husband and I have been remodeling/building houses for a long time, but 2 years ago, we both quit our jobs to try doing it full time.  We've had a good time with this, flipped a couple of houses (in case you read my underwater post...we actually ended up profiting on the sale after all!)  and decided to try buy and hold to renters.  Well, Obamacare in Tennessee is kind of killing us, we're not big investors, and our already painful $1,200/mo health ins policy is set to go to over $2K in January. So I decided to go back to work for health insurance.  I got a great job offer in Olympia WA.

As I'm sure you guys know, Puget sound area is quite a bit more pricey than Chattanooga TN.  We've traditionally been cash investors, so the move will hurt a little in the short run.  But I'm actually very excited about the long run, because there's more room for upgrades in a flip there!  Here, it's a tight budget buying a house for $65K and trying to fix its problems and sell it at a profit for $140K...there, the houses sell for enough that it's not so tight that fixing structural will make or break you, is all I'm saying.  

Anyway,  to make our first flip work there, we need double the cash we needed here.  My idea was, "hey, lets rent for a year!"  That gives us enough cash to do a flip right away and see how it goes.  It sounded so perfect.  Until....

No one there rents to people with 4 kids and two large dogs and a cat...I've never really rented before, so that never occurred to me til now.  Also, add to that that we're not going to be long term renters, so we're not super marketable!  But then I thought, aren't there other investors who are looking to buy and hold, and might kind of love us living in/fixing up their house for a year while we do our thing?  I feel that could be a win-win.  

So, what's your advice?  Should I rent, or buy and save tons of money over a year to flip again later?  If I rent, how do I find a landlord who's an investor?  (And likes dogs, haha!)  What would you do in my situation?