The US government has is own calculator to compare the daily APOR and the rate you want to charge to a homeowner so that you can stay within, or know what category, you loan is falling under.

Make sure you are actively working towards that goal on a daily basis.

Most of which don't think like investors (In my experience) They will set you up with MLS daily emails based on your preferences. 

On the areas that I focus on, I have subscribed to Google Alerts, which sends daily updates of news stories that feature my areas.

I commute down to NYC daily.

To get there I am working on increasing my income and reducing my daily living expenses.I had a massive personal budget overhaul about a year ago and reduced my expenses as much as I could, all expenses are planned and budgeted and I know exactly how much cashflow I have each month if there are no unexpected expenses.Part of that is I am focusing on flipping/wholesaling property to build more capital and then use it to buy more rentals as well and focusing on increasing my J.O.B. income until I can do REI full time.I think either route can work, buying only rentals may be a little slower at first but if the equity and cash flow are managed well it can increase more and more.

If you are too stressed with work on a daily basis where you want to enjoy your weekend, go for rentals, if you have time to visit a property before / after work and do some on the weekends to make more money, go flip.

I've been selling commercial full time for almost a year and am struggling getting off the ground - I am building a solid database (from 0) of industry professionals (buyers/sellers/brokers/wholesalers etc), doing lead gen daily, and finding quite a few pocket listings.

Almost daily we get texts or emails about them wanting us to remove certain trees, or repaint the fence, or other things.  

They showed updated mortgage reits yield daily...So I decided to start watching mreit, though I was not convinced yet, and the yield kept creeping up.