Mike, Welcome to the 'club'.We worked with HOA and PUD when we first niched to real estate. 

I feel fortunate to find that one and the land its on is up zoned it will allow multi story mixed use commercial and resi and STR and is in the biggest city of the wine country in Oregon so upside along with it..

You need to be extremely thorough with your scope of work, and unfortunately the sun porch was not salvageable, but fortunately the contractor helped knock it out of the park and the home looks amazing now!

Thomas Picketty's recent book is about just this, that the way to get rich is start with a small fortune.

Fortunately for me, I haven't yet. 

I'm fortunate enough to have the portfolio I have, but the headaches and R&M associated with owning property are pretty high.

They’re convinced they can pick the right house and make a fortune.

Real estate investing clubs - If you do a simple google search you should come up with a few options for local REI clubs depending on your area.2.

Fortunately market rent is coming way up each year so that helps.  

I do fortunately have a few connections to a couple small towns across the US (southern OH, MN, etc.) so at least in those markets, I have a bit of an understanding on what areas to stay away from.