so, you're maxing out debt service which makes it tougher to cash flow.with that said, no matter the purchase strategy, you should always make sure you're using actual numbers, and not random assumptions.for example - some people will throw out '10% for capex.' 

Eliminate debt, establish a budget, and save.

Out of the 5 deals I am LP in, Rod's are giving me the top 2 returns (primarily due to fixed debt) while others, not so much but their returns do get accrued

If you take out debt to acquire, you will be negatively leveraged.  

This allows many groups (I know the crew at Easy Street can do this) even close a loan in a week or less.They'll stay off of your personal credit, while not impacting your personal debt to income which is valuable as you start to scale.

I'd rather have enough properties to reach a comfortable cashflow of maybe $20,000/month with very low debt and leverage.

Offer to be the guy that restores the old family property to it's former glory and all....Still it'll be hard to not look greedy because you do want to make money after all.....main thing to me is being super PATIENT.

Eliminate debt, establish a budget, and save.

Deduct NEW property taxes after you buyDeduct home insurance costsDeduct maintenance percentage, typically 10%Deduct vacancy+tenant nonperformance percentage(we recommend 5% for Class A, 10% Class B, 20% Class C, good luck with Class D)Deduct whatever dollar/percentage of cashflow you wantNow, what you have left over is the amount for debt service.Enter it into a mortgage calculator, with current interest rate for an investment property, to determine your maximum mortgage amount.Divide the mortgage amount by either 75% or 80%, depending on the required down payment percentage - this is your tentative price to offer.If the property needs repairs, you'll want to deduct 110%-120% of the estimated repairs from this amount.Be sure to also research the ARV and make sure it's 10-20% higher than your tentative purchase price.As long as the ARV checks out, this is the purchase price to offer.It is probably significantly below the asking price.

We raised $4.5 million in equity and got $4.5 million in fixed rate debt from Freddie Mac at a 5.85% rate.