It can be used to monitor markets, filter results based on lots of different criteria & even includes annual revenue numbers that you can work backwards to see how certain markets/properties are performing.

YouTube is also a fantastic resource—it's free and you can learn at your own pace, which is a huge benefit.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

I paid for the subscription for a few months and drew my own custom Google maps areas and color coded them red/yellow/green based on a "grade" I felt came from a few metrics like crime/average household income/etcI also really like realtors dot com new maps, if you search for an address and click on the map and then go to the top left and choose the Value slider it will give you a nice color coded map of which areas of a neighborhood are higher valued.

Start with BiggerPockets Ultimate Beginners Guide (free).

All Texas based. 

If the answer is yes, then it's a no brainer to make minimum payments on your 2.8% interest rate mortgage, and use the funds that you would have paid extra to pay it down faster, to either invest in more real estate, the market, or anywhere else where you can get a ROI > 2.8%.If the answer is no, then feel free to aggressively pay it down as fast as possible, to become debt-free faster, and just have a large amount of money in savings or to splurge with.The bottom line is that your 2.8% mortgage is GOOD debt.

I look at all I do for clients for free.. 

This means that if you pay off the loan too early, then you'll pay a 1-5% fee off the loan amount. paying off the loan early means you either refinance or you sell the property, both would trigger a prepayment penalty to the lender. that being said, you can choose your prepay options, 5yr usually giving you a better interest rate by like a 0.25%, 3yr being most common and standard, and a 0,1,2 yr where you can buy down the prepay to be less years. meaning you pay 1% upfront of the loan amount to get a 1yr prepayment penalty so you're free to sell the property or refi after 1yr. 

To improve your approval chances, use rental income from your first property, consider co-signers, and explore lenders that use Income-Based Repayment (IBR) for student loans.