Target potentially distressed owners in your marketing.

Talk to a broker in your area about how much that would be and then save aggressively towards that target.

However, those rents may be market, but if the tenant pays for electricity or water, you need to back that out of their rent (utility allowance).Tenants are not supposed to have a co-pay >29% of qualifying income and the voucher addresses the difference.For a small investor, I wouldn't target them since I stated the major rules, but there is paperwork if your property has a use restriction requiring income qual. 

My target tenant is also a sec 8 tenant and so I don't have to spend alot of time chasing rents either. 

I, on the other hand, determine my max bid not on the 70% rule but on my own Return on Investment (ROI) Target or Hurdle rate.  

I am thinking of targeting homes with parking or a garage as a must.

@Tommy McGraw Condos are good to put in if the target market will be buying them as a primary residence.

Given that you're brand new and will be living on site as well you may be better served to target an empty property.

I target C class markets and look for cash flow.

The 3-5 year timeline is a little tight, but buying a fixer upper will help to hedge against that.Summary - Look at your target market every day.