I've found this pretty helpful as a starting point.

My father even brought me along to ask for private money lending at peoples homes. 005 bought my first home in Louisiana, turned into a rental and moved to Fort Worth Texas and bought my first brand new duplex in 2008.Educated myself and bought real estate investment courses and settled on Armando Montelongo‘s flip this house completed that course and bought my first 2 fix and flip in 2009 sold one in 2009I did not farewell during the housing market crash, simultaneously lost my job due to the Event Horizon oilfield disaster.My lovely wife and I now purchase real estate in San Jose Del Cabo Mexico with our cash and build with our money as well.

If your goal is to focus on minimal cost for this, that is when it might make more sense to do it as a purchase with a new mortgage. 

The biggest challenge I can see for this is that I hear it's a pain in the *** for the seller to go through a local community bank and confirm their income for their approval for a mortgage, and there are local/community banks that will approve 95-100% LTV loans based on how profitable the deal is.

This would be our first STR.

I'm located in Central NJ (Monmouth County) and own a property management company (PMI Inspired) that would be able to help you with your goals of investing this year. 

However, this will require sacrifice and having a duties of a landlord.

Would like to hear what are some key things to be aware of in this area when selling/buying properties? 

Analysis of 136 homes in two DC Metro counties held for 5 years.Genesis of my curiosityAs a Realtor and investor for 10 years I often create my own theories of various market trends based on my own observations, experiences and listening to the anecdotes of others.

I haven't seen a discussion about this on the forums yet, and figured I'd start the conversation.In case you missed the news this week, billions in trade came to a screeching halt at U.S.