Why your first deal should be boring
The returns you brag about at Year 3 are the reason you quit at Year 6.
The best first deal is the one that survives your own inexperience. That is the entire underwriting standard for Year 1, and almost nobody applies it, because boring deals make terrible stories.
What "boring" buys you
A boring deal — full occupancy history, unremarkable neighborhood, rents at market, nothing to fix — has one property that no exciting deal has: when you are wrong about something, and you will be, the deal absorbs it.
Your first deal is not an investment. It is tuition. The only question is whether the course fee is capped.
The returns you brag about at Year 3 are the reason you quit at Year 6.
The test
Before you buy anything, run it through the deal analyzer with your honest numbers — then cut the rent 10% and add $150 a month of expenses you have not thought of. If the deal still clears its debt service, it is boring enough to be your first.