They accepted our lower offer which gives us a pretty fat buffer.

Make sure you have a large buffer to deal with unexpected  issues.  

I live in one of them and I rent out the house in back of me.I was doing some research from the " Real Estate Investing" by the McGraw-Hill book and it said " Because real estate often provides a tax buffer between regular income (such as income from your job) and your real estate investment income due to depreciation, it is likely that some if not ALL of the cash flow from real estate investments will be TAX FREE"I have been reporting the income to my tax consultant every year but should I be doing something different and do I really get a different "tax break" because of the income that I am getting?

For now, read all you can and focus on acquiring enough capital to be able to make a good start with a healthy reserve buffer - don't spend everything you have on your first deal, you need a little cushion for the unexpected.

Get a really big buffer with several more units.

I use an app called Buffer.

You need a buffer to protect yourself against unexpected repairs or a vacancy. 

I put 40% down to ensure I have a income buffer to cover expenses. 

Obviously I love the appreciation that might occur but the only use will be to get HELOC against the equity so I can add more properties to my portfolio.For anybody who is considering that approach on properties in these locations should probably keep a bigger buffer in their HEKOC use than the 20%-25% the banks/lenders require anyway.

Just kidding, but I do put 20-25% buffer on man-hours, just because they are getting paid by the hour and who knows what Oops will happen, material wise I narrowed it down to only 5% contingency.