They are not well suited for a novice.You may see auction results that look appealing, but you don't consider things likea.

Lower debt to income allowed as well for conventional. 

Although that would be looked down upon by a lender as well because of the inherent risk of lending to someone who has too much on their plate. 

This method allows each partner to defer capital gains tax on their portion of the property.It's important to perform the "drop" (distribution of property to partners) well in advance of the "swap" (sale or exchange) to comply with the "held for investment" rule.

The deal doesn't work as well with higher interest rates.

Also tweaking your pricing on VRBO and Airbnb so you are active and it pushes you higher in the search results.Tweaking the price that gets pushed to these platforms works as well.

We should meet up sometime and knowledge share.

Prices are higher, but rents are very high as well.

You did things outside of the normal without proper knowledge.

With that said, I've done some research on the market and found the following information helpful in my considerations for Phoenix that you might find helpful as well:  Demand for both buying and renting property remains high due to the city's strong economy and growing population.