It's been a journey of discipline and learning, and I believe I'm now at the stage where I'm ready to start actively shopping around for real estate investments.However, embarking on this path is both exciting and daunting.

Activities such as appealing assessed values, shopping for cheaper utility providers, shopping for cheaper insurance, or even energy efficiency upgrades are all on the table.

Since a condo would be limited in terms of physical changes, think about what services or experiences you could add like grocery shopping (assuming full kitchen), concierge, driving service, eco tours, snorkeling, etc...

You could try to shop for cheaper insurance, but there's not much of that out there right now. 

Very chill meetup with no pitching or sales, just REI people hanging out and talking shop.

Then shop it either for wholesale or buy it yourself.Lots of acquisition guys do this since they have great deal flow. 

When I was working in the space, the company I worked for acquired value-add grocery anchor shopping centers.  

Loads of new build communities and new shopping centers.

But it's like a one-stop shop and they set you up with all the ads.

VA is great for the 100% financing which covers 2-4 units as well and those can be rented in addition to rooms in a primary.Just make sure you shop around for quotes (without letting multiple lenders pull credit).