Sounds like we employ nearly identical strategies.

Economic Timing.According to data compiled by Marcus & Millichap[2], the Portland area has experienced three very important trends since 2010:The average price per unit for apartments has nearly doubledThe rate of employment growth rose from 2010 to 2015 but has since declined steadily, projected to be up 1% for 2020 (estimated before COVID-19)Roughly 30,000 apartments have been built since 2010, with another 5,600 units slated for construction in 2020Most RHA members have enjoyed a solid decade of price growth, rent growth and steady occupancy.

We closed on our first property on November 15 and plan to employ the fix-and-flip strategy. 

Conventional financing will also require that you qualify using employment history, income and DTI.

The great thing about living in a high cost of living area is that your salary / wages are hopefully also very high.If you are a new college grad, I would focus the next 1-3 years on increasing your salary as much as possible(gain new skills, new certifications, change employers, etc).Once you make more money, you can easily get in a position to buy a property on a more frequent basis.Best of luck!

And what your prior occupation was/is  do you have monthly retirement pay from a W 2.Or are you self employed your whole life and the only one that is going to help you in retirement is yourself.. ??? 

Here are two lessons: The property was about an hour away and at the time I worked for an employer full time, so it was hard to get over there each weekend to work on it.

I'm self employed and not showing much income on my taxes.

If you can qualify with your income, DTI and employment history, conventional may offer better terms.

The economy is rocking, we have full employment (~4% unemployment) and wage growth is still at 4%.