Its great to know that you are keen on real estate investing, you should keep learning through books, videos, podcasts, and trustworthy sources.

In response I got into this habit of going to information sources and checking on things, getting direct information, asking area PM's what they feel rents are tracking on it, a whole bunch of stuff.

Like 3-5 minimum from a number of sources.

The most accurate would be to scrape the direct source you are looking to retrieve data from.

I am interested in recommendations for online courses or books (or other sources of information) that people have found useful. 

Given he was originally from Australia I thought it would be prudent to find out from local sources what his back story was.

It's time for all of us, including me, to go to work sourcing opportunities.

We review a multitude of data sources to provide a real-time view into a real estate market

Joanne,USLI was mentioned as one "stand alone" umbrella source (means they do not have to write the underlying home & auto). 

If you want a fixer upper at a price you can BRRRR, you're either getting it from a wholesaler (if you're lucky as these are often as overpriced as the MLS these days) or sourcing it yourself off market.