If people are scooping them up before you, it sounds like part of your issue is speed.  6.

For example, the principal paydown is slow at the beginning, but speeds up.

Having a new construction Sub base is critical your not looking for the cheapest your looking for quality and speed..

Anything I can be reading to help speed up the learning curve on estimating repairs?

I think the company is very small, but we use it because it works at lightning speed compared to propertyradar.com and I the website does not show the phone number or email address and it does not generate a bulk list.

The term "turnkey" has a bad history to it but I think with the speed of information being traded and the amount of competition popping up lately the market will indeed correct itself and level out in favor of the individual investor.  

Prices don't make sense.I say proceed with caution and great speed.

However, if you competition has pantries, and you house does not, it may slow down the sale process (or speed it up if the opposite is true).

Just bringing you up to speed, Jamal didn't pay the seller 30K, he paid them 24K, he sold it for 30K without touching the property.  

Add appreciation into the mix then you speed up the equity in your property you can pull out to use as you wish - as long as the income of the property still pays for itself so you don't have to shell out the difference.