Obviously, many are hoping for appreciation and aren't concerned about cash flow these days, but my personal comfort level is to only purchase deals that pay for themselves without having to come out of pocket as I'm only a high school teacher. 

"This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind; so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unnecessary thing, I said to myself, Don’t give too much for the whistle; and I saved my money.As I grew up, came into the world, and observed the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle.When I saw one too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, This man gives too much for his whistle."

I am new to REI on a serious level. I

The path to financial freedom is often a long one, if your comfort level is with a different class I would wait until you're ready for that specific investment.

I am familiar with RS enough on that level. I

Also, my advice would be to make sure that you are documenting any/all rental income on your taxes moving forward if you haven't done so already.What might be happening here on the macro level is these investors on VA backed loans are getting cold feet on lending to investors like yourself and I unless they know with very high confidence that we will not default. 

I wanted to know at the state level is this legal or not..

@James Montgomery for very detailed information and analysis of local neighborhood level,  I use Neighborhoodscout.com.

If investment property, you'll have to do the math to make sure the cash flow still works for your comfort level. I

Using your two examples, it may be that property 2 is way more profitable on an ongoing basis than property 1 after spending $20k replacing major systems.TLDR - Don't think that paying a price at a ".9%" level is a necessarily a failure to be avoided (it might be, but that's why you need to actually run numbers).