My piece of advice would be to research emerging neighborhoods and focus on areas with strong job growth and infrastructure development. 

You need to develop a subject matter expertise and treat this like the hands on business that it is. 

.- Current owners purchased many lots and they haven't developed them.

We talked about an aggressive paydown at a rate of $5k for the next 6 months to make the deal sweeter for the next person, but renting it would be preferable to that I believe since I can get a higher return on smaller development projects at a burn rate like that. 

Lastly funding developer who has 3 subdivisions going in WA DC market. these are big time deals and with our funds for the soft costs  500 k to 1 mil on each project my client is going to make  sit down  but probably over 10 million net  life changing money and well we will do good too !!

Given the location and how the town has been developing it seems like a good investment opportunity for rentals.

Additionally, while rates aren't historically bad right now, they are higher than 4-5 years ago, and they will be even higher for you as an investor than they were as an owner occupant, which is what you were when you bought originally.I get that you are anxious to add to your portfolio, but that could be achieved without touching your first golden goose.Sometimes on BP, the push is to leverage every last spare penny, but that can be a risky game as the markets shift. 

Yes, the more units you go up, generally the less players in the game so there is some advantage in purchase competition as you go up, but also more management scale and cap ex for someone who is new.3.

Instead of platforms like Angi, try building relationships directly with contractors, architects, and developers.

Given the location and how the town has been developing it seems like a good investment opportunity for rentals.