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.

The reality of it is that a lot of hot markets, including Orlando, require that you also have hard earnest money you need to put up and be comfortable losing in order to be competitive on deals.

The question will be at what price and terms… Like I said before, I’m willing to pay near market value to be able to get access to an off-market property without the competition, although I’m looking at conventional 25% down, 21-day (real) close on non-owner occ deals.

Competition - You want to get AS MANY buyers and looky loos in the property at the same time.

Not sure if the competition all do the same thing.