moment to tighten the marketing strategies?

It's generally better to tighten the reigns on the spending and delay your real estate investing goals while you build up various savings and reserves. 

Guess you need to tighten your criteria so you have less possibilities.

I've been told to not over lubricate or you cause the wheels to not rotate and causing a lot of strain on the pulley...not sure how true this is.

That you don't want to put your friendship at risk and that such new regulations could strain the relationship mixing business with friends. 3.

I know the knee jerk reaction is the banks tightened up their credit profiles and it is just "tough", however there is still a reason (underlying underwriting guideline) which functions as the core reason for turn down.

I wouldn't call it overpaying, simply its above where your numbers/risk tolerance allows you to be based on your calculations.Now if you've tightened up your numbers as much as possible and are confident they are accurate and still cannot justify these prices, the other option like @Mike B. stated is playing the waiting game and finding something off market.

But you are right about the strain on relationships with the family.

Once turmoil struck financial markets in 2007, underwriting tightened more and more sharply than at any time during 1990-2011.

But the Fed has other tools besides the Fed rate, they can always tighten the money supply by selling securities to take some of that extra money off the street.Either way, real estate tends to work in 18 year cycles.