I would still like to make an offer and want to find other ways to make our offer more competitive. 

Right now, I’m currently working on raising funds for my first deal :) If you or anyone you know Is looking to invest with competitive terms, let me know!

The key is to price them competitively.

Milwaukee is hyper-competitive, next months numbers will probably be 103% sold to list ratio, we estimate about 5 or 6 buyers for every seller and it will only get worse IF rates come down.Just got an AO yesterday with a builder on a spec, 90 days out, some custom finished, LVP instead of carpet, we offered 7k EM and they countered with 6k non-refundable because of the customization.

@Andrew Galloway The STR market is very competitive here with over 40k units.

We get offers accepted while they are LOWER than the competition because we are credible "they just have a better feeling about us".And why not?

If you haven't yet I would suggest looking at Furnished Finder and Zillow in the areas that you are considering in Northern VA to get a general sense of the competition. 

prices and rates are high and there is lots of competition for deals, both on and off market. 

You 100% need a pool to thrive in this market, especially considering the competitiveness of the market. 

“If the industry disclosed the commissions, whole life sales costs would have to come down to be competitive,” Fechtel says.