I don't personally think that low cash flow, ultra expensive areas are smart for beginners. 

Look into a couple things: 1) ultra small towns typically do not have zoning regulations (e.g. think under 1,000 population); 2) in the ETJ of a larger city there is not zoning regulation until it has been annexed, but if you are close to city limits they will have public utilities extended there for future expansion.  

That's often a good place to start.In that same theme, if you start adding features that nothing in your area has, then there's no market data for the appraiser to extract value from, meaning the appraiser would either give it zero value, or an ultra-conservative guess at value. 

.#3- Has an attorney/inside man(my words, not his) that is ultra connected to distressed deals and seems to get them to the table on these deals before most others even know about them.My question to the seasoned real estate investors out there, which relationship do YOU HAVE in your business that is most important?  

People get caught up in the numbers and stats and yes that can be important but most people with high net worth (millions) to ultra high net worth tens of millions or higher want to work with people again and again.      

Everyone here, even the ultra-successful investors, all put in the time and hard work to get where they are.

Really we are expecting for about 25K but trying to be ultra conservative for our first property.

My personal favorites involve ultra secret, invitation only, trade platforms where you can invest money and receive 10X the amount back in 30 days.

There are so many construction guys here in town trying to flip houses, it's ultra competitive.

Let's break things down.The real estate industry is a very high income business for the ultra talented & successful agents.