Renovated: Added granite, high end finishes and fixures, landscaping, new flooring and painting throughout.

It sounds like you got a solid plan for your first investment. 

One of our biggest clients plans on building more up there and meeting another GC or two would certainly make sense.

Below are some actionable steps I plan to take after identifying a market:- find a rock star agent by referral and/or calling brokerages and asking to connect with their top producing agents- find a rock star contractor by referral and/or yelp- have control over construction by setting per diems to incentivize contractor to finish the project on time, within budget, and with good quality- leverage my rock star agent's time to check up on the construction process (checks and balances)- hire independent handymen/inspectors to check up on the construction process for a flat fee (checks and balances) There's competition everywhere, you won't escape that in any market. 

Yeah that sounds like a good plan!

I Know with my plan to acquire 5-10 properties in the next five years, at some point I am going to have to make 1-2 purchases a year.

I can imagine it is considerably more work as well as I plan to manage myself.

Quote from @Chris Seveney: @Jay HinrichsI plan on checking them out.

What I'm planning: buy and hold the property, brush and clean it up with intent to hold until cost of funds drops a little in 4-6 months.

I do plan to live on a percentage of the cash flow.