Help Needed!! Calling all Experts.

[Daniel Bakalo]

Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen,

My name is Daniel and im here to hopefully find a person or numerous people who could provide some incite.  Ill try not to be long winded but what to try my best to decried my situation.  My brother and I are 33 and 27.  We currently have jobs which we don't really care for and they keep us away from our family for most of the year.  Only getting to return home during holidays for the most part.  While we are very grateful for the jobs and the income they provide after close to 5 years living that life its time for a change.  We want to be back home.  We both have a love of working with our hands and both love real estate.  After thinking long and hard on our situation and possible income achievable we feel real estate is the best bet for were we live.  Which is North West FL.  We are both currently Senior Construction Superintendents in the oil field.  Not much of a use for that in NW FL.  We both have a background in Residential Construction we me being an electrician and him being a carpenter.  Our goal is to flip and sell with the possibility of picking up rentals from time to time as money allows.  Its something we would find so enjoyable for us and feel it could be manageable in the NW Fl area but were willing to do anything in the South East for now.  Now we are not totally clueless to this as I have read a few books on it including J Scotts book.  Between he and I we currently have 4 houses, 25 acres of undeveloped land, and 3 improved city lots with sewer and water on it.  We have a llc set up for business.  We also have close to $200,000 in liquid cash.  One of the houses was purchased in foreclosure and its about a weeks worth of work away from being able to be listed and resold.  Ill have to get all the numbers on it but we will be in roughly for $55,000 and anticipate a resell for $100,000.  Now that I believe I got must of the pertinent information out of the way ill list what we need direction in and will appreciate any help yall can provide.  

> What is the best way to find good deals.  We don't need a lot.  If we could find 5 or so deals a year I think we could be ok.  We would grow from there.  Sure we'd love to be big players in the game and with our dedication it may happen but ultimately we just want to go home and make a decent living.

>  Is it smart buying houses out right or is it best to finance. Only thing we have that has a loan are two houses.  They are technically personal residents but were willing to do anything with them to get our company rolling and were purchased below market value.

>  We have been doing all our own work with the option to contract out anything we cant handle.  Although we are fairly decent at remodeling.  Is it best to find someone to do the work instead?  Our 2 year goal is to take lower paying jobs that are less demanding than our current 80 hour work weeks and use the extra time to get the ball rolling on real estate.  Then take that over full time.  We currently have 6 figure income which helps buying properties but allows us no time to do anything with them.  Do we have enough cash to take a lower paying job back home that allows time to manage our business or do we need to keep working our miserable jobs for more cash?

> Is staging a house that important for resell?  Does it help sell that much quicker and worth the trouble of doing it. 

I know I've forgot 100's of things I rehearsed in my mind to ask all yall so anything I missed please tell me.  Our biggest dilemma is finding properties to buy.  What's the best route to find these deals.  WE are both open to anything and everything.  Let us have it guys.  Every single persons input will be greatly appreciated.  Thank yall for reading this and please let me know if you need any more information.

Thanks,

Daniel