Once you do get buy something, be sure to look at a cost segregation study for the property.  

When buying at auction you will have zero ability to sue (and win) an auction site if information is not correct. 

I would both buy a property to get your feet wet and at the same time make a plan to scale.  

As-is cap rate of 7.5% in my market (kc) would be pretty awesome to buy. 

So back to being a real estate investor: the only way to be one is to buy a property and create value out of it, whether through finding a below market value house and selling for a profit, or renting and creating cash flow.  

I also like to be set higher than most of my competition because I only buy really cool properties that are sought after.

We would have to come oop about 400-450 for 2nd HH.Also planing to use other rest of heloc for a dscr or brrr so that would possibly help as well.Would you wait until rates drop to do another HH and just buy the brrr/dscr now?

I am still trying to figure out my buy box, but long term rentals feels like the right strategy for us.   

There are two types of return from a rental propertyCash Flow & Appreciation.I normally also aim for a minimum of 8% return between Cash-Flow and Appreciation.Appreication, nationally, is around 2% to 3% annually.Therefore, your goal is to get the cash-flow to be about 5% to 6%.The issue is interest rates being very high, you would therefore, need to buy at a pricepoint where the numbers still make sense.You can always put down more of a downpayment to cash flow, but that will impact your cash on cash return calculations.Best of luck!

We have also toyed w/the idea of buying/moving into fixeriuppers and selling every 2 years.