I'm based out of the Bay Area, CA where housing demand continues to outstrip supply and prices/rents seem to escalate endlessly (famous last words I know).

There are endless places to find contracts in this day and age like the forms section of BP and if you join any FB groups on wholesaling usually the owners have some on there as well.

Most of the talk is either (1) disguised advertisements to drum up business or capital where the investor is spending someone else's money or (2) desktop research and endless chatter about "the market" with no actual investing discussion.

They are definitely a front runner and will be hard to beat. 

I realize there are endless pitfalls and lessons learned and I want to grasp as much of these as possible using Bigger Pockets.

There is an endless amount of material and knowledge in this community.

The front runner, in my limited opinion, is Cozy.co.If you google it, or even search on this site you will find plenty of owner/property managers using this software. 

Piggy back on to developments that have a history of getting their way with state government..More immune  elitism and to politics, we have our fantastic and forgiving inner city tearing down old obsolete junk and then building new with all the endless benefits and services of higher density urban life. 

At BP, the possibilities are endless.

If you mean difficult, as in endless criteria and paperwork, no, hard money lenders are generally much more straightforward.