Advice PLEASE- Hard money vs conventional to finance fix & flips?

[Dustin Burke]

     We, my brother & I are just starting out in this exciting world of real estate investing. One of the things that gets me excited are all the options and possibilities. So many paths can be taken and one not necessarily better then another.  

We currently are analyzing numerous flip and buy and hold options daily. We both have exceptional credit and have the means of funding a portion of the total project cost to show "skin in the game".

The question we have is on financing options. 

We have a goal of owning 10 rental properties financed with convention loans. However, we plan on flipping several house as well. Obviously conventional financing is the "cheapest" but, I am concern that strategically it is not the best option. 

THE QUESTION/s: Would we be sabotaging funding of the rental investments with conventional loans if we also used conventional loans for short term financing; such as for fix & flips? How will it effect our credit if we used conventional financing for fix & flips? Should we be using hard money knowing that we plan on using conventional for the buy & holds?

As stated, we are newbies and new to this site. So please checkout my profile to learn a bit more about me/us...

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and look forward to gaining knowledge through your experiences, Dustin