My advice to all the veterans I helped was this: do your due diligence, set very clear standards to what a property has to have for your needs, do not let the money burn a hole in pocket (causing you to betray your standards), and get in the game when you find the right deal!

Lesson learned - this was our first rental and we got burned by our first tenant (signed a lease and then never showed up so we had to go back through the leasing), the takeaway was to ALWAYS follow the procedure and never make decisions based upon a personal emotion.

My market the DC Metro area is a burning hot sellers market were prices are through the roof.

Many times a small multi-family property is being sold because the landlord/owner is burned out, so see if you can get an idea of the story behind the sale, because it could be indicative of the hurdles you may have to face to get the property stabilized in the future.  

I recently had a client who put in offers every weekend for a month and just got terribly burned out and ended up quitting. 

Side note: We’re also doing a live in flip at the moment, and the sale proceeds would help us to complete that more quickly and additionally have enough for about 2 down payments on other properties.Also, just a note, due to zoning changes in our city, if the duplex were ever to burn down or be destroyed in a natural disaster etc.

We've all taken our lumps and gotten burned here and there.  

I have a high-stress job and need to create other streams of income asap before I burn out and collapse in a blaze of exhaustion and defeat... that is all ;) 

Make sure you have a fat bank account for when things sink.  

I didn't get burned on that, but I could have.