Preferred areas in So. Florida for investing in flips?

[Joshua Pavao]

Hello Floridians!

So a brief introduction: I'm new to Florida, recently moved to Aventura from Massachusetts. I'm also new to real estate investing since I didn't want to venture into this topic until after I had made my move.

I'm currently doing my due diligence, including researching, networking, and lining up my finances. almost finished with the book by J. Scott on flipping houses, then I'll move onto the Calculating Rehab book, supplemented by lots of webinars, podcasts, and communicating with locals (hopefully!)

Anyways, I'm interested how some of you decide where is a good location for investing in flips, and where would be good for rentals?

My current goals are to begin with my first flip in early 2016, eventually getting into buy & hold real estate as well, since my lease is up in 11 months, I'll probably use my VA loan and look into house-hacking next year as well.

I'm thinking of looking somewhere in the range of 35k-60k houses and hopefully making profits of 10-20k (not positive how realistic this goal is yet until I narrow down to a particular zip code)

After that will be the fun task of searching for a lender, but I won't get into that too deeply as my first step is choosing a farm area (if that's even necessary here) My girlfriend and I have been considering Hollywood, based on how it's getting more and more attractions in that city (margarita-ville for example) but I'd love to get some advice from the experts who know this area much better than I!

I apologize for the long post, I honestly meant for it to be a bit shorter than this, but, if you've read this far, I truly appreciate any info and time given for my question.

Thank you!

Joshua Pavao.