I commend you for staying focused and persistent in the light of adversity as evidenced by your intro.What I would do to start is to select a niche in real estate investing. 

Patience and persistence wins this game!

Be persistent and creative with your search and I know you can find what you're looking for—feel free to message me if you are stuck and need some ideas.

The key is to be organized (investment package), properly present your case (solid underwriting) and persistent.

Those are still great strategies and deals can be found if you are more persistent than the next guy.

But with enough persistence, you'll eventually find something that works for you. 

In your case its late on the 2nd, unless that is a public holiday, then you serve it the next day because that's the day its late.In your case with a persistent late payer, I'd try to do a personal service and if that fails a nail & mail service.

I have met a lot of people around here who have done great things in REI starting with less, and the common traits they all seem to have is hard worker, creativity, and most importantly, persistence.

If all four conditions are well met, e.g. its close to Center City with good transportation (public or otherwise), pricing is steady or rising, permits are constant/persistent (indicating still room to grow), and rents are solid, if improving, and the inventory moves quickly -- you have a good neighborhood with long term growth.Would love to hear other investors thoughts on this -- these are just my very inexperienced thoughts.

And to James' very last point, persistence is key here.