Thinking it can only be done with some advantage is disingenuous to yourself, it also completely ignores the MASS of books written every year that all say success is based on a few things: hard work, taking risk, proper mindset, and finding competitive advantages.

It would allow me to pay a higher price for the assets, and be more competitive, but am I being penny wise and pound foolish? 

The golden days of anything we're apparently always sometime prior to the present.Realistically, investing will become wayyyy harder in the future, & it will have nothing to do with prices and everything to do with ramped up competition.

You'd have to be able to convince tenants that the higher rent you're charging (compared to the local competition) is worth it because the tenants will save money on their electricity bill each month.

This will be my first sale so I'm not sure of the competitiveness for these liens so I have comprised a list of more than I can afford as sort of a back up plan.

I will agree with most of my colleagues here.Your pictures are horrible and don’t show the property correctly.They are dark and taken with a narrow lens (probably a smartphone) and cut off half the rooms making them look smaller and cramped.Toilet lids should be down in pictures and you should be able to see the entire bathroom.You need a professional photographer to get that job done right.You’re most likely overpriced and making your competition look better to buyers.Also,in your Craigslist add you said only prequalified buyers may see the property.That’s a huge mistake and it’s going to cost you.Agents like myself insist on previewing the homes first to decide if our buyers will want to look at it.According to your ad,we can’t so we will bypass your property and move on to the properties that do cooperate with us.Quite frankly, unless our buyers accidentally stumble upon your property on their own,it’s not going to be shown to them for a while,if ever.The agents have no incentive to work with you.At 2.5% and no fellow agent listing the property to work with,you will be at the bottom of every agent’s list of potential properties to show.

Depending on the market there may be less competition than at foreclosure auctions.

There are some great online resource that catch listings 24-48 hours after they are posted but the best thing todo is find a realtor and ask them to set up an auto-email for you particularly if you're in an area that has a strong market you don't want to be behind of the competition.

We are in a very competitive market, and if you have the ability to get into something before the summer that would be best. 

Where I am based it is a more affluent area and I think people are not motivated enough to unload their properties at a discount.If you are a realtor then some of the contacts can turn into MLS listings but even this was difficult, very competitive and proved unfruitful.