Discouraged but Fighting the Feeling

[Gia Hughes]

I have wanted to own properties for sometime.  I have a primary residence. I've completed real estate school (didn't take the exam). I have a good credit score and super debt-to-income ratio. I have a process for analyzing properties. I have a real estate agent that I use, actually 2 for different cities. I am preapproved for conventional financing. 

So what's the issue? I don't know. I have made offers on several properties and several have been accepted. None have gone through. With the first property, my broker switched companies without telling me. We still communicated, but this made things fall through the cracks and the week prior to closing the lender came back and said that they needed 30% instead of 20%. I walked away from it. I have since secured preapproval elsewhere. Then I tried a house that I was going to move into. I made them a great offer near asking and they got scared. I guess they didn't really want to sell, so they pulled the house off the market and said they would put it back up in July.

So I went to cheaper Section 8 housing, but the ones that I made offers on didn't pass a 4-pt so I would have needed to be able to support a cash deal. Another multi-unit had too many structural issues. I figured it was too much for my first deal.

Are these growing pains or are there adjustments that I need to make? I'm wondering if it's me and I am not being persistent enough. I prefer buy and hold, preferably multi units, but I have looked at SFH that would make good rentals as well. I'm in a coastal area of Florida so the market is really hot. It's been hard finding properties that will provide decent cashflow that I can get approved under conventional lending. With all these financial ducks in a row, I thought getting the first place wouldn't be this hard. It has been over a year and I am trying to not give in to the "not meant to be" feeling.