Seller is an idiot for even accepting your offer.

Turnkeys offer less hands-on management which is ideal for beginners and it give you valuable experience as a landlord.

Focus on how to juice cash flow if possible (rent by the room, separating spaces, etc.) or decreasing expenses (assuming a loan, looking at new build incentives, aggressive offers w/ rate buy downs that work for you, etc.) 

He is a mentor of mine as well, and is not so interested in making money but rather he told me that he likes to see 7% in his passively invested accounts, so I offered and he accepted that I would pay him 8% APY On the principal that I borrowed. 

We just made an offer on our first deal.

So if you're buying a stabilized cash flowing asset, the returns you'd have to offer a PML would be lower.

Admittedly I am new to this and I haven't written a creative offer before. 

I was told my by loan offer over a year ago that the rates in spring of 2024 would be back in the low 6's high 5's... look where we are. 

I think the Iowa City, Coralville, and North Liberty markets offer great rentals with lots of different types of levels of rent.

You can explain to the Realtor that if you don't do this, then it has to be a cash buyer and they will offer less.