Which comes first: the Chicken or the Egg??

[Brant Vaught]

So I have been scouring the forums for a while now putting a strategy together for fix and flips, but I now need to know, who do I talk to first; sellers or lenders? I have identified an area of town to start targeting and a few properties therein, but now what. I will read one post that says you need to have the financing before you talk to a lender, but then I'll see another post saying that you should only go to a potential lender with a deal and exit strategy in place for that property. 

My strategy is to buy distressed property with either private or HML and do flips. I do actually have a more specific strategy, but for that sake of typing a novel I'll just leave it at that.

Ideas?