New Investor from Long Island, NY looking to connect

[Mahesh G.]

Hello Everyone, I've been on this awesome website for last few months and just listening to a lot of great podcasts. Little bit of my background, I've been in aviation industry most of my life and also owned a couple of small businesses.  Earlier this year my brother and  I bought a house in my neighborhood by just going to an open house and making a low ball cash offer (home equity) . We found a contractor and thought we will renovate it really nicely and if it doesn't sell for profit and we will rent it and let the tenants pay our mortgage. (There's no positive cashflow properties now a days where I live and people are happy even if they can just break even).  Two months later the agent called and accepted our offer. I wanted to maximize our profit and get into real estate so I decided to get a real estate license to have access to mls and save selling commission. Long story short it didn't go as we had expected but we flipped that house in 6 months and made a very little profit. Since it was my first deal I thought any profit was still better than loss. I did learn A LOT in the process though. Soon after we sold that house we bought another house (still in contract) but with the same strategy. If it does not sell for bigger profit than before we will rent it out.  

Since I started reading and listening to a lot of podcasts on biggerpockets I've come to realize that's a bad strategy. Why wait for months to flip and make a little bit of profit or by renting it out without any cashflow and wait 30 years for someone to pay off the mortgage. Why not buy a low end property out of state for 20-40k with good cash flow and pay off the mortgage in less than 10 years. I love the BRRR strategy but it's just not possible where I live.

My goal is now to buy a at-least one single family or a duplex out of state with good cash flow this year, 3-5 properties next year and then double each year for next few years and also flip 2 more houses in 2017. 

But this is where I am stuck: I want to have some control and do not want to overpay to turnkey companies and also do not want to buy in the area I don't even know of. I would love to network with people in different parts of the county who want to invest 50-50 with me and who can manage the properties as well. 

Any comments or suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks!