If you're targeting a specific market, I suggest connecting with local investors through meetups. 

Any advice or suggestions would be great!

@Meghan Carson sounds good and thank you for the suggestion.

What I personally do is I will hire a local Civil engineer who has done subdivisions in the jurisdiction and I will pay them up front for a detailed feasibility study.

I’d also love market suggestions and ideas regarding how to connect with others in the REI space outside of the events that BP holds.

@Daniel Tanasa house hacking looks to be the common suggestion, thanks Daniel 

Quote from @Aaron Zimmerman: I would look for other ways to legally reduce income such as cost segregation studies.

I'd suggest that there is essentially no tax implication for this as compared to your alternatives.

They don't understand how to price effectively, study the market, set boundaries with tenants, establish policies and procedures, communicate, and dozens of other things.

So if your interest payment is $1000 then the servicer automatically ACH debits your account that plus the servicing fee (assuming you set up automatic payments as @Christian Ehlers suggests).