You will want to look for smaller banks--assets of $250 million to $7 Billion.

Does $5000 include flight, hotel, and all your spending money?

A lot depends on your goals.Here is a previous thread that may give you some answers.https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/55/topics/103905-another-newbie-question---if-you-had-400k-how-would-you-spend-itYou also need to decide how active or passive you want to be.

I have indeed begun listening to the podcasts and have been spending a lot of time reading here.

Spend 15-20 hours on this site searching, reading, practicing evaulations, studying your market, factoring in your available investment money, then set some GOALS.

I don't see where you came up with the $20-$40k figure.As a 'buy and hold', a $170k house that rents for $1150 is horrible, it wouldn't cash flow enough if you bought it for $100k (which I would consider a good deal if its really worth $170k and needs $25k in repairs).So it has to be a flip,,,I'm not a flipper, but first it would scare me that with the problems you have described, there might be a LOT more deferred maintenance you haven't found yet,,so the rehab cost could be much higher.As many have stated, just contact the owner and see if he even has an interest in selling, until you find that out I wouldn't spend a lot of time on it, you need a motivated seller, so he has to be interested in selling or it won't ever work.andy

I had some doubts that they would get the work done on time and I felt I would get the lowest amount of work done to get it right.The 5k firm gave me a full presentation about how they could help me in the deal, people who they knew who had an excellent reputation and could work with me and made introductions to people who were very helpful in getting a successful deal done in an area that I knew no one.So which one do you think was a better place to spend the money?

could you give an example of using leverage as your describing also I was thinking if I was to get two house for cash using them to take out equity to spend towards more houses if that would work to help come up with more money

Never mind the time and money an agent or broker spends to become and stay licensed and the dues they pay to access the MLS.

Such good people willing to spend their time helping and assisting others it's great!