Difficulty finding first deal

[Justin William Green]

I'm ready to take the plunge and buy a rental property.  I've looked at student housing, commercial buildings that could be converted to lofts or apartments, small multi-family, single family housing, etc.   I'm primarily just searching the usual online listing sites - Trulia, realtor.com, etc.  

I have a good idea of rent rates per bed in the area, but it seems like all the listings are priced 20% too high.  Appreciation has climbed here in Waco, so I get that part, but from a cash flow standpoint, I would need to make offers on average 20% below list price to make any single deal work for me.  I've talked to a few realtors about properties, offered to take them to lunch to pick their brain, etc., but I think many of the local agents are busy thinking about closing their deals and not really motivated to help find something.

Anyways, I'm a newbie with a fairly substantial amount of cash to invest.  But I'm also a CPA and have run numbers and not in that much of a hurry to buy myself into a deal that isn't right.  

Any recommendations or advice?  I'm committed to investing, but just haven't pulled the trigger on that first deal.