Dave Ramsey offers good solid advise for the average middle class slob who can’t control himself but his approach is so conservative in this day and age that you won’t make much for fear of risk and you will save till your dead using his methods . 

How do you folks typically approach that in negotiation?

Texas is landlord friendly but you will have additional challenges managing from Boston.  

Its definitely a challenge.

I'm looking to learn from others that have taken the landlord approach on either SFH or MFH as their first acquisitions and what are some of the pitfalls to look out for.My background, I'm an Army Veteran that left that world to seek out new opportunities as a civilian.

I always see comments about the challenges of the LA market, but this totally blows that out of the water. 

Any advice on how I should approach this is helpful!

First, the most simple approach is to join all your local Facebook REIA groups and stay active in those by letting everyone know what your goals are. 

Any approach can be sophisticated to any business endeavor.

I'd recommend the following ideas:1) If you can't find great deals right now, stockpile as much cash as you can and keep it ready for when the market turns a little south (this is the second longest bull market we have ever had for the stock market, so it will go down and pull housing with it a little).2) Try different approaches.