Since we just got our first property in November, it might even be too early to talk much about leveraging equity.Instead of typing out all the things I know about this stuff, I'm just going to play the noob.

If you know their motivation for offering seller financing then use that to form your deal and try and play into that motivation.  

@Amber Miller, PMI only comes into play when you have less than 20% to put down.

The only thing that matters is how much you're willing to gamble.

I don't mind the early payout, but it is difficult to plan on keeping this money in play when it comes back sooner than expected.

ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_shareBoth books encouraged getting involved in communities like this one.I can be pretty technical so I’m recreating some of these rental income calculators in excel to help get my feet wet just playing around with potential properties.But my plan at the moment is to meet people, find people like property managers, CPA etc. and just to overload myself with information.I have the older book you mention in my amazon cart now, many of the reviews seem to agree that it is a good reference.And also where I live (on the border of Boca Raton Florida) almost everything has HOAs.

There's no "best way" to accomplish this and it's a gamble every time.

You're absolutely correct that you can just as easily go to any site and filter through a list of properties in your desired area and price range but I believe their value comes into play more when it comes to details that might not be readily available to everyone. 

I’m only two years into this game and I can be the sweetest person but don’t play with my money!!

I was thinking about really low balling the offer and seeing how it plays out.