When we aligned with the right people we went from slow lane to (very) fast lane.

While the real estate market usually slows down this time of year, we are seeing a lot of buyers taking advantage of homes that have been sitting on the market longer.

For my long term rentals I am no longer purchasing in New York State and I am going to be searching out of state in a more landlord friendly state such as Ohio or Pennsylvania.

A loose plan in hand is better than a dozen frantic Google searches, trust me.

You can also find real estate investing groups through meetup.com, Facebook, or a Google search.

You can do this, but need to do it slow.

Best of luck with the search.

However, I havent yet found a realtor who has been able to bring me a deal that I havent already seen on the market through searches on Realtor.com or Loopnet.

LTR is stable, slow, and risk is low but potentially not as much cash (right away).Comes down to what goals you have and your risk threshhold - I have friends in CO springs who do STR and MTR, and works out great - but also have folks who LTR in that area and it pays for them self and it a great way to save money in places like taxes and build equity.  

I actually prefer some of these search and map features over the MLS.And those that think they can save $$ on commissions will be disappointed.