As long as you stay invested and let your hard earned capital continue to grow, you can pick your spots when a real estate opportunity offers outsized returns comparatively to other investments. 

Now understand, I am not picking on you, I am simply explaining the process you are going  into.

to go back to my first point, though, i generally can't pick - it can take months and months to find a deal. 

Inventory is scarce, rights are high.You should definitely pick a market you know and can go to. 

One thing I’ve picked up from years of managing rentals in San Diego is that organization is everything..

Pick the amount of income you want real estate to provide you, and buy the amount of units you'd need, such that if they were paid off, you'd hit your goal.

You can submit questions via chat but I’m sure those are cherry-picked.

@Heather Baileywhy not pick a market within a couple hours? 

Over the years, I've done several dozen of these and know how to pick a good one. 

In my area (near the beach) its mostly families and they want cabanas, baby items, chairs, coolers etc that we do not provide but I have a local vendor that delivers and picks up these items and charges a few dollars per day for each item, and give me a 20% referral.