Many of your competitors for these deals will be financing far less of the deal and in most cases, will pay cash.

It's shaping up to be a worthwhile read.Some others that I've enjoyed are:-Getting To Yes-How To Win Friends & Influence People -Never Split The Difference-The Richest Man In BabylonI'm also in the retail space and some books that have more application to that side but can still be applied elsewhere are:-Crush It-Crushing It-How To Sell At Margins Higher Than Higher Your Competitors-I Know It When I See It-The Thank You Economy-UnMarketing-Delivering Happiness-Grinding It OutI'm sure I left quite a few out but that's the top ones that come to mind.

You are still facing competitors bidding the same property--to me that means we probably have to watch the economy move down some more before we are in a full on buyers market.Some experts were predicting a recession/depression to hit in January 2021, but it seems the governmental stimulus has moved it into a sort of slow burn (massive layoffs, higher taxes removing discretionary spending money from peoples pockets, etc...), with the San Francisco Bay area taking some hard hits.People are not yet feeling the true "Hard Times" that comes along with the bad times, such as 07 or the early 90's  with foreclosures (and Ramen Noddles) being the word of the day for most of the USA.Then good deals will abound.Just my 2 Cents.

It's not so easy to just call your competitors and ask them for trade secrets.

A good broker will keep you apprised of rates each day in your strike window and will have backup lenders if your bank decides to pull a bait and switch after you are locked in to an appraisal that one lender has to "release" (even though you paid for it) to go with a competitor.

I am not familiar with hurricane insurance, but I wonder if the increases with this will be passed on to tenants by your competitors, thus enabling you to follow suit in increasing your rents in the future.

Ha, on the upside, this will keep some out of state competitors out of my Indy market!

At DoHardMoney we do things a little different than most Hard Money Lenders and as a result we’ve disrupted things in a way that competitors feel the need to raise doubts and concerns about our systematic approach and our business model.

However, you'll have data that is highly targeted and fewer competitors.

I make nothing by saying this (in fact he's a competitor), but @James Wise runs a solid TK operation in your area.