Please Help - Finance Advice for a Newbie

[Justin Riggan]

I've been researching and doing my homework for about 6-8 months.  I'm ready to do my first flip and now I'm really researching and working on the finance side.  I'm looking at hard money lenders and websites around the country.  I make a nice 6 figure income with my full-time job, but I do not have a ton of cash on hand that I want to free up to go into my first deal.  Don't get me wrong, I know I need to put some skin in the game, but I don't want to be out 20-30%.  Looking at a lot of different sites, the fees, points, etc vary a lot.  Any sound advice or personal success stories/recommendations here?  I want to do this long-term so I want to make sure I'm making the right decisions from the beginning.  I don't want to get burned by one of these companies and give up on my long-term real estate investment dreams because of a bad situation....