Advice: Did I make the right decision?

[Ryan Morgan]

Hi all - I'm newer to REI, and am working on my first deal. We were close recently, but lost the deal. Here's the story:

4BR, 2BR property in a B neighborhood with lots of rentals. I estimated the property could rent for $1150-1175 per month. The list price was $74,900. After running comps, I determined the value of the house was around $68,000. We offered slightly lower than that to start, and our final offer was $70,000 with $2k for closing costs. They had multiple offers, and we decided not to go up in our offer. We lost the deal.

I was hesitant because I was concerned about paying more than was I thought the house was valued at. However, the property would have easily had a positive cash flow, and the Cash on Cash return would have been in the ballpark of 16-18%. In a competitive market, did we make the right decision, or do you sometimes have to pay slightly above market value to "get in"?

Looking for insights into our first attempt at investing. Were we too conservative? Was it a good move?