I think I feel an emotional attachment to the neighborhood having worked there for a few years and wanting to see it turn around.

You will typically win easily because tenants tend to base their claim on emotions, not facts, and rarely have any evidence with them to support their claim.

Advantages being the sellers weren’t as emotionally connected as owner would likely be, so they were agreeable to my negotiations/concessions originally and again after inspection.

Wow, so much emotion over a small error!

Don't get emotionally attached to a house and make plenty of offers that may not get accepted. 

Sure, within the next 12-24 months there may be some great deals coming on the market at owners who purchased a bit too thin on the cashflow find themselves crunched and suddenly motivated to sell, but that's kind of irrelevant when you're looking to buy a primary residence which is a decision most people make more for the emotional/stability reasons than for the cold-hard investor reasons.Main question to ask is can you afford what you want.

In negotiations, I knew what I needed to pay and I knew what I needed to get and that helped me not get emotionally invested on either end of the transaction.

Don't get caught up in the emotion of competitive bidding. 

I’ve grown emotionally attached to a couple of those properties too.Since I’m not mortgaging anything, I am just thinking of the buying potential I would have if I did decide to leverage some of those properties and start diversifying.

Be analytical, never emotional 6.