The author includes some charts that provide the kinds of investment maps you are looking for.

I feel like I have a good idea of what to do to start my buy and hold strategy, now I just need to execute with precision.

This will identify the retail price ranges, in which you can list the rehabbed property and the price ranges, of distressed homes, you should target.Go to the website bestplaces.net and search best places using zip codes and a map will pop up looking, for housing stats and look for chart scrolling down looking for value of owner occupied.

 That is precisely my question as well. 

(To see charts, pictures and graphs, you may have visit my BP blog to enlarge.) 

See chart below of overall debt to GDP.  

The immediate cash flow on a leveraged real estate investment with that $150K will be lower, but your wealth will increase exponentially faster with leverage (assuming the business is run professionally, of course).Here are some fancy charts demonstrating this point:I built this spreadsheet out to answer this question for myself about a year ago.

I've done some outside projects before but I'm looking to tackle bigger projects and need more precision.  

Make some calls ....and forget the Large money center banks...the small State Charted and /or local lenders are best.

Now I do a recorded webinar, so it's similar to the conference call concept but with a visual component so I can share photos of the project, charts, and data during the discussion so that viewers don't have to flip through printed material to keep up with the conversation.