We have thought about buying an investment property and not sure if we should flip a house or buy a 3-4 rental.

Many DSCR loans come with standard 2-3-5 year Pre Payment Penalties, borrowers usually have the option to 'buy out' of these penalties upfront with points or by accepting a higher interest rate.

I would look at both areas everyday on realtor or redfin, check out the houses run numbers on them, and over time you will start leaning more towards an area while also zeroing in on what youre looking to buy. 

When the banks saw that there was a huge wave of defaults, they stopped lending so people that needed bank loans to buy a house were not able to buy houses.  

You either need to become an expert and do SEO yourself or hire an agency that has a complete plan and roadmap for getting you to a place where organic motivated leads are flowing to your site at a rate where you are taking down profitable deals each monthMike Plactere of We Buy Long Island Homes Fast is a perfect case study of someone who used this approach and is dominating his market.  

Investment Info:Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Planning to use HELOC to buy cash for a property.

I ended up buying them.

I am telling anyone that will listen that they should be buying houses now.

The first thing I ask them is:  "Did you by chance purchase the insurance when you booked"  This puts it back on them because they do in fact have that option.