I like to keep things lean as possible and obviously recoup the money invested into these as quickly as possible.

The way to find that person is to see who lists all of the flipped homes in the area.

If you're looking for cash flow, I personally suggest checking the Columbus OH market.

Just keep doing what you're doing....

Use someone else's money when you can and keep your own money available for emergency situations. 

Even if you view yourself as a passive investor, I always recommend investors take a hands on approach with their earliest properties as it lays a helpful foundation.With respect to turn key operators, I've personally found their objectives to be at conflict with the objectives of investors like yourself.

Quote from @John Mason: See if you can find time to fly to meetups in hot markets too I am trying to find my first one something closer where I live so it's easy maintain, but I ll keep in my mind. thank you.

Personally, I invest in SoIN (New Albany, Jeff, etc) and have done really well with my LTRs there.

I call him 2-bit and keep asking him when he is going to sue me.  

This guy is telling me it needs 150k to reno, but I have a really good team of workers that usually keep my costs down substantially and do very good work.