The trick will be to find one that has enough rental income to offset the taxes so you can make some money.

Trick that I am learning:  work on overcoming your fears, pull leads, get on the phone, talk to sellers, local brokers, other investors, other RE partners, etc. 

Any success stories or could you please share with me some tips and tricks?

If you are good at self managing and know how to play the Airbnb/VRBO game with all the picture tricks, word gimmicks, amenities stuff and you are actively on their platforms, it seems to still be a viable market for the good investors. 

Lied to the wife about visitors and got her to spend a weekend removing all the kitchen cabinets, sanded and resealed all of them (probably my best trick since we married).

The trick is finding a market that has future growth along with a high rent to price ratio.

Any tips / tricks anyone uses when looking at furnishing designs?

This single trick allowed me to exponentially save into my next real estate deal and so on and so forth.I also agree with @Steve Vaughan's sentiment above.... agree with about 99% of Remit's advice EXCEPT him saying that renting is cheaper than buying. 

Based on my very limited understanding I would want to leverage my first time home buyer to buy at least a duplex though i would really like to get my hand into a triplex to increase the cash flow while living in 1 unit for a year (lot of tricks and tips here to not have to live in there for a full year which i would like to learn more as well) and lease out other unit(s).

If so any creative tricks to get financing on them?