Seeking Advice getting deals!

[Fernando Gomez]

Hello!

So I am stuck in my real estate journey.

I am trying to fix and flip my first property but I can't get a property. I've been making offers, sellers are even accepting the offers but once I do a rehab assessment I go immediately into the negative (bc contractors quote me more than expected) and I am forced to ask the seller to lower the price and we end up in disagreement. I requested quotes from 4 different general contractors and it was way above what I had estimated for the rehab. Maybe my contractors are charging too much? maybe I have to do the contracting myself? or maybe I have to get my own crew? or maybe the house was overpriced compared to ARV and the repairs needed?

I am also trying to figure out how to make my offers more attractive: close fast, no option. But I am often low balling because that's what my analysis is telling me to offer. If I want to keep the property and refinance it after repairs, that is even harder because I have to do everything under 75% of ARV.

I am using hard money lenders and on each deal I am usually paying 6-7k on holding costs, 10k closing costs, 25k-30k on comissions and selling costs and all rehabs have been quoted between 70k-95k. 

I am looking at a beautiful house price at $210k no offers, with an ARV of $333k. I have estimated 75k on repairs and still with a $123k (333k-210k) gap is not enough because most of it is gone in commissions, holding costs, etc.

Maybe I need to make more offers, start looking into off-market deals or connect with wholesalers. I have searched properties in auctions but you need a ton of cash for that. 

What areas do I need to improve? Thank you in advance!