My wife and I are both teachers. 

A new teacher had to rent a studio in a  multi-family house considered a "drug house."

I am out of state, and my local area (in Boston) creates a much larger barrier to entry, so I have been researching areas of the country that might enable me to start to build my portfolio sooner. 

The plus version allows for class tracking, which enables you to associate a transaction with its respective property.

My wife is a teacher and kids are in college. 

To be clear..operators CAN LEGALLY "wholesale" if that is their desire:1. own the property and resell (some call themselves "wholesalers" and others call themselves "flippers"2. be licensedThe main reason for this post was to make people aware that some teachers don't know the laws or don't care. $5400 is a lot of cash to pay for BAD information.

Smaller flips, time in and out in 1-2 months, will be more profitable over time and allow you to keep quality contractors continuously employed.Spending more on hiring more contractors will effect bottom line on one flip but enables you to do more flips in same time period increasing over all profits.

Taking out a private/hard money loan will generally not damage your credit any more than it will enable you to build it."

I'm a school teacher also. 

In 2015, we qualified under Tier I of the federal Regulation A and were enabled to offer up to $20 million in nine states.