I am looking at buying my first "home". 

Your options are going to come down to what your purchase agreement says.

I also know that this strategy is often used to leverage available cash for multiple deals.However, as a new investor, I've decided to focus on purchasing one property at a time and go through the learning process until I complete a refinance.Only after receiving the funds from the bank would I consider rolling into another deal or multiple deals.In this situation, do you think it's better to still take the 80% loan from a hard money lender, or should I use the cash I have and purchase the property outright?

There are other avenues that will allow this.

Looking forward to attending more breakout sessions at BPCON this year and meeting more presenters just like Scott!

Find markets where if you're all in at 75% or better, you'll cash flow and then go find deals to where you can be all in at that LTV (i.e. purchase plus rehab)  Direct mail works. 

Curious as to opinions on this situation, there may not be a 'right' answer but sometimes others' thoughts help open up new ways of thinking.

Just going on Zillow and offering at retail price is not going to get you immediate cash flow.

I just looked at rentals in your market and it appears the average price for a 4bed home is around $2,500.

How did you finance this deal?