Since last year, I was pre-qualified but lost out on offers for two homes, each with over 20 offers.

My last hold up is that in Pittsburgh i would need to pay real estate transfer tax on the properties.  

I recently did a study abroad in Japan last year and am sure that you can make a killing in the Japanese market due to the decreased yen value and the lower apartment building costs and real estate as a whole compared to the States.

I just posted in another forum you can get cash flow and appreciation in columbus and I posted a few charts that show appreciation in columbus vs Cleveland (actually a downtrend in the last bit) 

Run it by  your preferred lender, but believe last I checked that was a options.

It can't last forever

Last summer I was at about 50% occupancy when I should have been closer to 80-90%. 

That only lasted 3 years.

We were lucky to help 3 veterans last year with their first home purchase using a VA loan.

The last approach is the NOI approach which is the most common way investors buy multifamily.