Private financing, personal savings, 203k, Conventional, FHA, any of these sources will set you in the right direction.

A good source for contractor information is the "Charlotte Real Estate Investors" group on Facebook.

-using List Source and Propstream to pull list - using batch skip tracing for the phone numbers - slybroadcast for the voicemail drops but I am debating on trying texting message marketing just want to know your guys experience on TXT blast ?

Obviously, the equity in your home would be an awesome source of starting capital, and this is actually how many investors get started.

Another local source is meetup.com where you can search.

Having lots of lead sources helps when one dries up or isn't working the way you want it to. 

Is that part automated to extract from the data source or do you import the data manually?

I have been active out here personally as an investor for several years and also as a real estate broker helping other investors source deals for their personal portfolio. 

Husband owned a landscape company and we couldn't source high quality equipment or get it repaired locally at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner.

Husband owned a landscape company and we couldn't source high quality equipment or get it repaired locally at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner.