First Flip with Father (Long Island / NY)

[Jason Stephens]

Greetings Bigger Pockets, 

My Father and I are looking to get into real estate investing and want to focus our efforts on flipping homes on the North Shore of Long Island.  We realize that the market here is more expensive then most and that concerns us because we both are nervous that we won't be able to find homes to flip. 

We are interested in starting with Hard Money lenders because as a self employed business owner I am nervous that I won't be able to get a second mortgage or financing to fund this project. In addition, my father just retired from the bank after 30 years and without a steady W2 he will also have a hard time getting traditional loans. The other option is using our HELOC's on our house but for some reason the idea of a hard money loan makes more sense to us because the ability to close fast.

So my question is what is the best way to start looking for the first flip? As a business owner, I understand the value of "systems" and I am interested in setting up a system that we can replicate from home to home and flip to flip.  

1.  I want to set my search criteria so that way I can quickly scan our target neighborhoods and identify potential flips.  I have started by looking at homes on RedFin / Trulia that are on the market 90+ Days with keywords, "TLC", "Investor", etc.  

2. I want to find a house that I can get for 70% of the ARV, but I know this will be SUPER difficult by using the same search methods that everyone else is using. Does it make more sense to give my search criteria to a real estate agent that can do the mining for me?

3.  Our goal is to hit a steady stream of singles and not necessarily home runs.  We'd like to set a goal of making $20,000 per flip every month.  We realize that its hard to get one deal, let alone 12, but once I crack the formula there is no reason we can't replicate it. 

That being said, how do I get over our fear of not being able to find a "good enough deal".  I understand you make the money on the purchase and not the sale, but the fear of not finding the perfect deal scares me that we'll never start.   It is discouraging to see people flip homes when the purchase price's are $70k etc.  On Long Island where we live you have a very hard time finding a home that is in a decent area for under $350k, let alone under market enough that it is "flippable". 

Thoughts, encouragement, and ideas are greatly appreciated.

Jason Stephens