Making Offers Using Private/Hard Money Lenders

[David S.]

Looking for some advice or guidance on how others handle this situation. 

Been flipping for about 2 years now using just my own funds, so been making cash offers. I mostly deal with foreclosures that are listed and on some of the auction sites. Looking to expand operations a bit so I have been working on setting up a small network of private and hard money lenders. I currently have 4 that I can work with.

Anyway, I am not sure how to handle the financing piece. Obviously, the lender wants to approve the deal before committing to fund it. Not sure where to put that in the sequence of things. Do you run your deals by the lenders before submitting the offer to make sure you have someone on board if the offer is accepted? Or, do you structure your offer with a financing contingency or something and only present it to them after you have a contract?

I guess my biggest concern is that I work a lot of deals and make a lot of offers before ending up with a winner. I don't want to wear my lending sources out or annoy them by using up their time for every potential deal that may or may not work out.

Thanks!