Here are my 2 cents, but I'm still new here as well.
I bought my first 4-plex at $124k, estimated rehab $26k, total $150k. Rents $2,200 per month after rehab and fully rented, cash flow $530 per month (1.47% looking at the 1% rule). (After all expenses, including taxes, insurance, utilities, lawn care, 10% property manager, 12% total kept aside for vacancies and maintenance ant mortgage of course). Some people have told me that's very low on the cash flow, only about $133 per door. Old building built in 1930. Has had upgrades to windows, electrical, newish roof, etc.
Now, looking at some other metrics I'm interested in: Cap rate is 9.4%, Cash on cash is 16.7%. Applying the complete cash flow I have, (still rehabbing, so will still take a couple months to actually have it) I will have this property paid off in 9.75 years, with only my down payment (10%) and rehab costs up front. I consider this a good deal. Meets my expectations. When all is set and done, I'll have spent $37,500 per door to buy and rehab. I think I can probably refinance it and get most or all of my down and rehab costs back out. Would increase my monthly payoff, decrease my cash flow and increase my time to payoff to 12.5 years. My actual plan is to accumulate my contingency fund up to about $4,000 or so with the 12% monthly addition, then add any extra onto the mortgage payoff as well.
I think there are a lot of people with more experience who would laugh at these numbers. Many people are buying at $25,000 -$35,000 per door and getting way better cash flow per door. But, they have years and years more experience, many more connections and have done this for a while. Also depends on where you are looking. This deal was hard to find, but is also close to home for me. I don't have any off-market connections yet who are feeding me properties locally at huge discounts. Found this one on the MLS.
Also, I'm learning a ton. Getting your first property is key, I think. I had to fire one property manager already, who completely misjudged the rehab required, didn't rent my unit, so I've lost 5 months of rent while very little rehab was being done, costing me rent and the work was done poorly, so I had to have another handy man redo everything ($3,000 wasted on poor workmanship) and more... Not killing me since I have some reserves, but learning some expensive lessons. But better to learn these on a relatively inexpensive property within close proximity to me - and not sinking my boat. Will still continue to look locally, but I'm interested in rapid growth, which is hard to do locally.
Now looking to buy in the Midwest and almost ready to get into some properties there, getting into the out of state rental business. More potential pitfalls, unknown people, and not in arms length. Too scary for some people, but if you want greater returns in cash flow, look at other cities in the Midwest or elsewhere. Can get better cash flow per door - $250-500 depending on property. But greater risk if out of town.
If you want local, I think the deal you have may work. It's not very pretty by some standards, just like the one I have in town I showed above. But, doing your first deal, you learn a ton. You have to start somewhere. Most people read and never start. You'll get to know what you're doing differently in the future. But don't buy a bad deal just to get your first deal done.
If going out of town scares you and keeps you from ever getting into the game, then you should buy locally and get going. Then learn from it. I now use my first deal as a measuring stick. When I look at other deals, I open the spreadsheet with my first 4-plex. Any new deal I consider, I want to do a lot better than my first deal. Especially when considering out of town.
Most experienced investors passed on my deal. After all, it sat on the MLS for a couple of weeks. But without it, I wouldn't have had the guts to get into the game. I told my wife that we will probably keep it forever, because it was our first deal. Ugly and all. Of course, we're updating it and the units will look fantastic when we're done. Almost gutting them out, new bath, kitchen, flooring and paint. What got me from reading to doing. Now I'm expanding my mind exponentially.
One more thing: Keep it simple. Get going. Don't overthink it. I wouldn't even know how to contact people who may be interested in selling, etc. Seems too complicated to me. Now, I'm learning a lot more about all that, but it's difficult when you are just starting I think.