Breaking into REI in an unconventional way

[Account Closed]

I currently live and work in Baltimore. I'm fairly young so I'm trying to build up enough cash to invest. 

But in the mean time, I was thinking of ways I can build up more REI money while networking with my community of investors.

I've got two ideas:

1) Start a blog on the local REI scene, collect emails from investors and send out a "bird dog" newsletter that would include deals that are profitable on paper. I would charge a fee if an investor closes on the property that I brought to her attention.

2.) I could start a website for motivated home sellers in my area. Sell the leads now and then use them for myself when I get big enough. The only issue with this, is that I'm more interested in multi-families than SFHs. So this leads might not be very beneficial to what I want to do down the road.

What do you think? I welcome any feedback. Thanks for reading.