Based on the number of people that hit my in-box offering capital for deals, I'm trying to gain a better sense of the competition.  

I think buying a duplex and living in one side is great, however the competition for duplexes here is kind of crazy, because Utah seems to have a lot of motivated investors that don't mind paying top dollar for their properties.

there are so many homes on the market in that area and honestly your home is not priced competitively.

This is a needle in a haystack and generally comes with competition and valuation premium, as well as lost opportunity and memory making costs.. 

The house was in such bad shape that even though competition was pushing up sales prices of homes in the area this one wasn't impacted.

Next to MGH, longwood, or Boston childrens in Boston, look where your competition is. 

my brokers all told me 10.9-11% for HELOC's and so i called Navy Federal CU and they quoted me at 9% with a $700 fee for the loan, that's really competitive so I went with the CU.Brokers are good at getting a bank account loan, based on existing funds if you don't want them to pull credit/income verification

With all that competition, do you think it is still worth trying to invest in STRs in the area? 

LA is the probably the last market I would choose to start out as a new RE investor, if I had other options, because of the high competition and outrageous values there.Man, I'll leave the remote investing advice up to those that do it - seems likes it would have to be a partnership with someone who has feet on the street in the area where you're investing. 

Competition is usually a good thing.