Atop the criteria you have, a more empirical factor you may want to consider is distance. 

I must warn you ... the blog is not for everyone for example... brokers maybe alienated from it.. because... after all why would they want to see the progress of some newbie who knows possibly the tire kicker and waists time... right?

You could almost run an entire empire using only the tools available through the MLS (at least in my area).  

I am beginning my Journey in the Inland Empire CA.

Now that I have been laid-off, and since my wife works remotely, we're getting serious about the idea of moving to a location where we can invest in property and begin to slowly build a small real estate empire. 

So I can build my empire and be financially independent.

So I can build my empire and be financially independent.

Being financially free is too vague...you need to find what you are great at (super powers) and build an empire around you that can handle everything else.

After talking that owners of that 4-plex, another older couple winding down their real estate empire, it looks like I might be able to purchase roughly $500k worth of properties for about $10k out of pocket, through seller seconds and a small personal loan, by years end. 

My goals are to build an empire of multifamilies and I'm also intrigued by flips.