Newbie here, trying to learn as much as I can about real estate before I decide to take the big step into acquiring a property but I have two questions. 

1. I believe in setting goals, so for my real estate venture,  I want to achieve a level of success where the properties I have are generating enough income to leave the "9 to 5" behind, and provide a value of at least $10,000,000. I know every property and location has different values. So far I'm looking into using a Buy, Hold, and eventually Sell strategy. With that said can anybody, "loosely" estimate how many properties I would have to sell or buy and hold in order to reach that goal?

2. Also, How do you judge different cities, and states of whether or no their real estate market is good or bad or business? Do you look at how many houses have been bought? City and job growth? Median income? ect