Look for motivated sellers off market and market via cold calling and or direct mail, geofencing, advertising and the like.A good wholesaler is as @Ericka Parrott mentioned, direct to seller, did good underwriting and can deliver an actual "Deal" whether buy and hold or flip. 

Buying My First RentalI was 24, being mentored by Dave for two years and I was ready to jump into real estate investing for myself.

Could help you save some serious $$ if buying and selling there and can also get you access to their MLS systems.

The first thing I ask is why am I Buying the property.I always look at the exit strategy first, is it going to be a rental, a lease option sell, am I planning on living in it.

We ran out of time which caused us to buy a couple properties we probably shouldn't have at the bottom of our exchange list.The better ones were sold before we could buy them. 

What would I need to do to structure the note in order to have a note buyer come in and buy the note or buy a partial enough to pay off the 215k at closing and still have some difference coming to me or the note revert back to me after the partial was paid for. 

I haven't seen prices drop too dramatically but I have seen homes in my buy box sitting on the market longer and some lowering prices. 

One thing you might do is sell your more expensive properties and buy less expensive ones. 

Quote from @Alex Spivey: I want to start renting as soon as I can so does anyone have adviceYou want to find a place to rent and occupy, or you want to buy an investment that you can rent to others?

I buy in the 220-260k range.