Thirdly, look for off-market deals so your speed and financing are less of an issue.I don't mean to insult you, but you have to look critically at your approach.

I want to own this property but it's going to take everything I have to get it up to speed.

I found the speed of my learning and involvement in REI boosted exponentially as I got engaged in the forums personally.Hope to see you more around the forums.

In today's heated environment speed is key with short option periods.  

You can also visit his jobs that are currently in construction to understand his quality and speed.

The challenge is I am not extremely familiar with Boise but am doing quite a bit of research in an attempt to get myself up to speed.

But spending that few extra dollars on quality and speed (L&I passes everything, home inspector loves their work, materials aren’t D grade, everything is up to code) is what counts.

Ive calculated that at my current pace it would take about 2 years from now to save enough for an FHA 3.5 - 5% down to get a house hacking duplex. then i would do any value adding repairs over then next 1-2 years to refinance out of PMI and ideally rent out my live in unit to generate cash flow then repeat with a new duplex/triplex.Getting my license, finding a mentor and co listing deals on the weekends may help speed up that process.

I'm sure you've heard the expression: "Quality, Speed, Cost.

The ones where you were forced into a corner or will have the upper hand in negotiation, just depending on the way you wrote your offer and navigate through the appropriate steps of the process.That's where I think a good broker's knowledge and experience will be the most helpful to you, when you have to navigate almost blindly through this maze at 10x your normal speed because of how competitive it is, when you feel you are stuck with 6k in earnest money in a house you didn't know some things about and your broker finds out for you that they have failed to disclose significant defects and he gets you out of it or when he helps you get a discount and a great deal or brings in his roofer in an hour and suggests you stay away!