I'm curious about this too, and browsing through the related forum posts to find some answers.

I have tried browsing the meetup forums and it is a mess.

My main focus right now is purchasing a multi-family property somewhere in California, moving into it, managing it myself, and collecting rent.I'm also really curious about how I can contribute my finances to make a gain in the long run outside of actually owning property; I think the term is syndication or something similar where I can give my money to someone for a project and earn interest on it in return.Before I get started, just want to say that I'm very much a "make it work in theory before I take action" kinda guy, but I am quickly learning to get over that and I'm just about ready to dive into my first rental property with what information I do already have.So here come the questions:1) I'm seeing a lot of properties (just been browsing zillow by typing "quadruplex" or "fourplex" in the filters), that are going for 1-2 million in my area (LA/Anaheim).

It's guaranteed income from your local Housing Authority, you can charge rent amounts well-above market, annual rent increases hit the Housing Authority (not the tenant).What really opened my eyes to the opportunity with Section 8 was when I started browsing Section 8 listings and found less than 10 listings (zero in some areas) in my target zip codes. 

As I'm browsing the forum, I see a lot of people who seem to have built custom web scraper software to find and analyze deals, but I was wondering if there is commercially available versions of those? 

Side note the other day I was browsing trulia and I found a property right up the road from me which might be a really good property to flip.

That's a bit of a gamble for the landlord and it means you price your property higher which may draw less interest from someone browsing listings.  

But not necessary.Just spend the next 3-6 months browsing the forums.

Keep browsing all the options here and keep learning!

I recommend just browsing the forums and messaging a few and see if there's any with availability that you click with.