The simplest ones would be read manually.

I haven´t found a local REI club either and since you are the first person I find that shares the same enthusiasm as I do, let me tell you what I'm doing and I hope it might be useful for you.After doing a Market study about rents within different áreas that I thought would be profitable to invest (and within my possibilities) I used my credit and leverage a 39k, 25 year loan with a 7.25% rate and bought a small one floor house (72m2), the owner agreed to defer the 3k down payment into 10 monthly equal amounts.My project is placed in Merliot, which I believe has favorable ingredients like job sources, low crime rate, easy Access, universities, commercial malls and I think the “Diego de Holguin” will bring development to the área.

A wraparound mortgage gives you titleBuying with the partners such as a joint venture partner can be beneficial, say JV Partners put up down payment money and their credit, you create an LLC, and the LLC owns the propertyFor a minor rehab, which  doesn't qualify for a Wholesaling deal, because it's only 10% or less of value to do the rehab, you can do a joint venture with the seller, agree to give them equity in a note, get on title, then do the work, then sell it, and make a joint venture fee after you pay the rehab costs and after you pay off the seller's noteLease option assignments is one of the simplest and easiest ways for new people to get started in real estate, get your license first, because you're selling the paperwork, you're not on title.Subject to and a note is one of my favorite ways to buy a property with a lot of equity that has existing financing.

How wholesaling works in simplest form:1.Wholesaler finds buyers and finds motivated sellers2.Wholesaler contacts seller gets property under contract after negotiating price for property3.Wholesaler flips the contract to his end buyer4.End buyer closes with seller5.Wholesaler gets paid assignment feeIt gets more involved then that but that's what wholesaling is in a nutshell.As far as the situation you described either the wholesaler was trying to assign a property from another wholesaler or he was doing something illegal buy trying to sell you a property he didn't have under contract.Those types make us legit wholesalers look bad and those types should be locked up.

You have the right ingredients to start: Cash, credit, and W-2 income, but low knowledge and little time.

There are several strong community groups that have food truck events, live music, community garden days and all sorts of other events to build a sense of community, it's got all the right ingredients primed to take off.

It's an example of basic math, in the most simplest form."

Like the duck told the panda in Kung Fu Panda "There is no secret ingredients."

You have discovered our secret - I'm sorry - but you know too much for us to let you go now......Ahemm... well... ok .. so in theory it really is the simplest thing in the world and why the hell isn't everyone doing it? 

You'll find patches of iffy spots but you have to mix that in with your goals, saute the ingredients and come out with a solution that will put YOU where you want to be in 5, 10, 20 years.