My ideal plan is to obtain hard money loan to purchase and rehab both the properties, flip one of them to repay the lender and keep one to hold as I plan on house hacking and leasing to other tenants.

Heather Harrison I totally agree I don't feel like it's enough either and it's also holding me back from finding my first deal!

In the case of a downswing, I would certainly think that one might look to move in to a buy and hold rental strategy, versus selling to owner occupants. 

I don't want to move in, and not doing so requires more money and holding costs; but once I get that first great profit maker, I should be good to go.  

Hello Matthew,I'm a banker in SoCal and many of our clients utilize LLCs for their RE Holding Companies.

The seller has said she would sell if we can offer $55k in all cash...which is a good deal if I was interested in buy and hold, but that price doesn't work since I am trying to wholesale this propertyWith all that being said, I'm looking for some advice on other ways to make this work and help out the seller.

I am an active duty buy & hold investor who has been winging it for the past 10 years.  

Hold back enough $$ in escrow to cover rent or eviction. messy but worth it.

We are interested in all aspects of real estate investing whether it is Wholesaling, Pre-habbing, rehabbing, rent to own or buy & hold.

The latter works well for what I call Build and Hold.