|As far as an inspection goes, Michael Bender is the most thorough inspector I've ever worked with and the only one I would use on my personal home.

It depends on what demographic you are aiming to serve.2) BiggerPockets, Facebook, in-person meetups.

I personally like to buy real estate that has A) excellent long-term prospects ie. area growth, commercial vibrancy, high housing demand, rising rental rates and B) positive or at least neutral cash flow.

Seems like your brother would be the person to ask.

@Eric Johnson - If your rate is good, you could consider doing a "subject to" deal where the person buying gives you a cash infusion for the right to own one of those properties. 

As far as you saying you don't know if it's in an HOA, it likely is, given how you described it and that shouldn't be hard for you to figure out just by looking at a Google Earth map (sometimes the name of the community will appear), or pay a local person off Craigslist to go drive it and find out the community name, take pictures of the lot, etc. 

Have you ever noticed that people can send you a picture of themselves and then when you see them in person you think they look a way different?

While I do not invest personally in OKC I work with a lot of folks who do.

If you are worried about being over leveraged first look at your personal debts that are not producing income for you.Remember that when you are increasing equity in a property you are only reducing the risk of the lender.

It seems like if I could put together 3-4 people who are interested in the same deal, and get them to pool their capital together on a flip, you would lower the per-person risk, you would allow more investors to enter the market.