Question for the Seasoned Part-time Real Estate Investor

[Vuth Tram]

What's up BP community!

These questions are aimed more at the REI that have full time jobs and invest for the long hall!

I'm 21 and just landed a full time position at a Fortune 500 company making decent money. I had a real estate license but decided to retire it because I wasn't doing anything with it because I was interning at the company I'm with now and fees started adding up. (Respect to starting real estate agents because it's easier to say you want to do million dollar listings than it is to find people for you to list their million dollar house..... especially when your 21 ) I might re activate it when I get a couple of properties under my belt and start selling them so I don't have to pay someone else commission) Im debt free and my only real liabilities are a car note and my rent, which is dirt cheap. I want to invest in my first rental property and continue to live where I am now (mainly because Its An awesome set up and it's DIRT cheap. I might move into a home I buy later down the road and do the casual fix and flip thing). So my questions are: 

1) Do you find a lot of deals on MLS or do deals only come from marketing efforts?

2) I want to put 20 percent down on a year 30 year mortgage but aim to pay it down faster. How much equity in this house should I have before I try and buy another house? I want to be conservative but at the same time not take forever to build wealth.

3) What systems do you have in place to handle the tenant in their problems? Handy man or do you fix it yourself? 

4) What are the 5 most common tenant complaints? 

5) Should I invest in 50k-90k homes or try and go for 100k-200k homes. I live in Memphis. 

6) If I decided to go with the 100k-200k range, my thought would be that it's less management (that is to say if i do my tenant search appropriately), but what are the drawbacks? 

7) How do you collect rent?

8) Any special search criteria you use in MLS to find good houses?

9) Where can I find good sources of data where I can find optimal neighborhoods for rental properties? What should I be looking for? Am I over thinking this and should just buy a house? 

10) How do you determine how much to charge for rent? Is there a resource I can comp my neighborhood rent?

11) I understand the REI isn't a get rich quick thing and I'm okay with that, but it would be awesome to be 35 and REALLY living life. I figured if I start now, whether I fail a couple time or not I'm bound to be somewhere decent in 14 years. Any advice on life or investing in general, Im all open ears.