I have a piece of land behind an existing rental that is almost 1.5 times the size of the standing triplex. 

Hire the right contractor, and time boxing.

How have you brokers got your first deal after getting your certification or what were the first steps after passing your exam?

@Tomoko HaleCheck with your city/county regarding STR regulations first. 

If I chose to try to find tenants before the unit became vacant I could likely cut down on the vacancy time between tenants and further reduce my vacancy to something like 2% but I budget for 5%. 3.

I’ve been interested in buying first property and need to learn and connect with people here, Hopefully I can connect with some of you guys in here to find out more information about how to find off market deals.

If your loan amount if 700k then a rate decrase of .50% - .625% often times makes sense.  

My goal is to always help bigger pockets members save time and money.

Keep us posted when you get your first deal.Best of luck!

Hi, I've listened to some episodes of the Landlord Diary, and many hosts mention that when they do rental arbitrage, they price their properties at 2 to 2.5 times the base rent.