You're in the perfect spot!

Yes you're at a huge advantage starting in your 20's as opposed to later in life, but starting with just 10k along with significant debt could be a much greater risk than the opportunity cost of waiting a year or so to invest when you're more settled into your job and relationship, with less debt and more money to invest once the perfect deal comes along.

Even if you do find a seller with a perfectly stabilized property willing to carry financing for you, they will have sales expenses and will surely need a DP for security.  

Interestingly, they have a graph that shows my market is perfectly on track at 4.5% appreciation per year over the last 20+ years, 2003-2012 is just a big zig zag in the middle.

It is in a perfect location for us.

In a perfect world yes, but it never stays perfect for long.

It's funny, we tried to get away from the mcmansions for a few years, but now I think it's back. 

Personally I would rather have a solid lower cost property bringing in money now rather than trying to find the perfect situation. 

Hey, nothing's perfect right?

I would say you know of some areas in your local market that could be perfect for this strategy at a price point around 100-150K for purchase and rehab of 25-50K, you can parlay that invested money into double what you have and keep going.