If someone has excellent credit and want to invest in Real Estate, where does one start?

Do you still have cash, lines of credit or other funds that you can use to get your next deal in? 

We both have great credit and will have about $12;000 saved together by December.

I would have saved myself a lot of headaches and money by doing a background and credit check on existing tenants.

Is it a greedy seller who wants top dollar for a pile of poo, or someone who is actually going to work with the guys/gals who are going to execute the project and have their butts/reputations/credit scores on the line?  

I have an applicant who has a good credit score in mid-700s and has pay stubs grossing a little over 3 times the rent. 

I know who can use it, what I want to know is can a buyer use this as a tenant buyer on a lease option agreement to buy a home while their credit is being repaired for a yr or 2??

@Peter Padalino the other advantage of adding solar is that it is building credit with the utility when the property is vacant.

I'm currently communicating with a local large bank, hoping to get a loan to payoff a current terrible mortgage on my house, rehab, and probably flip. 

However, I am finding through my talks with some lenders that, since I am still relatively new out of school and have multiple student loans (although I have great credit), my saving grace in terms of getting a loan to fund my first deal is the salary my day job pays me.I know that real estate isn't a get rich quick scheme and that I will probably have to stick out my day job for a couple more years, but at what point do you see banks, lenders, etc. start to give you loans to fund deals without a steady stream from a corporate job?