Financing my first "flip" along with some stock picks

To give a little background I'm getting geared up to do my first house "flip" (I use this term lightly as it will be a 2yr process). I've always loved remodeling work, and have had a decent amount of experience. Now that my wife and I are ready for a house I figure we might as well get something that needs some work. The hope is to find a depressed property, and then use my 3 weeks of saved vacation to beat out the major issues before we move in. The rest we can work on over the next 2 years before we sell and move to Colorado. Or so goes the plan :-).

Tomorrow I have an appointment with Bank of the West to see what they can offer me in the way of a home mortgage. I need something that either has a low down-payment requirement, or the ability to finance the house and repairs in one loan. I really wish the tax credit could be received up front, but so far that hasn't been changed. There is some talks of raising the cap and allowing it to be used at closing, but I'm not going to base any plans on that. We have some money saved up, but we'll need a chunk of money to make the needed repairs before move-in. If we could get the house and repairs rolled into one loan that would be ideal I think. And then just make a $7,500 payment against the principle when the tax credit comes to get our payments down.

Another thing I'm still trying to decide is whether or not to just do an interest-only loan. That is typical practice for "flippers" since the property won't be owned long enough to really make even a dent in the principle anyways. The money could be better used by investing it back into the property repairs, and helping build equity that way. The risk is that we end up living in the house longer than we planned and have to refinance. I don't feel comfortable going all the way to a 5/1 ARM, but I'm thinking a 30yr fixed interest-only type loan might work well, without quite as much risk.

Some people would say I'm crazy (you know who you are ;-)), but we will see what the bank will give me tomorrow. I know credit has been getting harder and harder to find, but the Wichita market is still doing very well in comparison. Since this is my first house purchase I'm not terribly familiar with getting a mortgage. Is it usually worthwhile to meet with a couple of banks before picking one and getting pre-approved? I've heard that getting pre-approved at multiple banks can ding your credit score from the barrage of credit checks. Is that true?

Recent Activity

None

Potential Trades

I don't have any available trading cash at the moment, so these are suggestions for anyone who wants them.
FWLT May 25P/30C or 20P/35C - This stock has been swinging about $10 withing the bollinger bands and just bounced off the upper. For ~$7 the 20P/35C is pretty affordable. I almost have enough free cash to do this one, but not quite.
OXY Apr 55P/60C - This one looks really good if you can swing the $20.00 cost. None of the wider strikes had enough open interest. This stock has been channeling between about $42 and $55 and appears to be turning back down from the upper bollinger.

Updates

AMZN looks like it's reversing for another ride down. I don't think it's worth legging out of the call since it's only worth $0.70 at this point. The small amount I would gain on a large drop doens't really justify the risk and commissions. Just have to ride it out and hope it drops fast and far.

FDX is on a support trendline and near the lower bollinger band. It's finally gotten some volatility, so I just might make it out of this one with my shirt :-). Today it didn't really drop until the last couple hours of trading. Earlier in the day it kept trying to push up and almost legged out of the put at one point. Just have to keep a close eye on this one. I am actually reasonably profitable on the put with this one. Still close to 40% in the trade overall though.

SLB still seems to be channeling between the 10-day moving average and the lower bollinger band. It just bounced off the 10-day, so maybe this trip down I'll finally at least hit break even.

MS and GS both are at a slight loss on both the call and put. They've also got a lot of time left, so I'm not really doing much of anything with them right now. Just let them do their thing.