I just choose not to buy unnecessary products I feel like are price gouging. 

This is called house-hacking and it's how many choose to start their investment journey :) 

Whichever strategy that you choose, run your numbers, and definitely consider all the other benefits of owning real estate i.e. appreciation, loan pay-down, potential housing expense decrease and/or cash flow. 

I was looking for reviews which would give me some real information to help with my decision-making process in choosing the right business.

I am looking to create a system which will allow me to analyze and choose markets more efficiently.I want to have a pool of resources/websites that I follow step by step so for example, 1: Check the housing prices, 2: Check the population, 3: Unemployment rate, etc... and then I will pull this data from the websites that provide it and keep going down the checklist.

I choose to jot-it down on a notebook where I keep track of my expenses. 

You can't choose your lender.

Choose the right property type 4.

Left the market, completely or partially, and had to choose between using funds from either accounts?

If you choose to use this technique these are some of the Pitfalls to watch out for.