$350K in Socal, Flip or buy and hold?

[Tim Wei]

I am a newbie to biggerpockets.com and just wanted to get some ideas from everyone here about our situation here. A little bit about myself: my wife and I both currently work full time at corporate jobs. Other than our primary home, we bought two investment properties in Las Vegas last year, one was rented out, and the other one is in the process of resell. After working at corporate jobs for a number of years, and with our family’s help, we have gathered about $350K (including the proceeds that will be collected from the Vegas house), we are hoping to make the transition to full time investors in the near future. As more and more cash offers flood the market here in Socal area and house price recovers, we can either use the entire money to flip one house at a time, or buy many cheaper houses in less desirable areas, to collect rental income.
Or, should we give up southern California and look into out of state markets? The goal here is to to just fully utilize our initial capital. I would love to hear eveyone's though on this, appreciate your help!