Granted, I work primarily in the $250K and below market, and every segment is different, but from what I'm seeing, this year is going to be another record year.

Targeting a different segment than you are but pretty honed in.  

If you don't send demand letters out immediately upon delinquency (ie on the 2nd) and you don't start calling and emailing to ask for the delinquent rent (ie on the 2nd), then they are going to assume that it's not a problem for you and they can just pay whenever they want.For example, there is a decent segment of people that will always pay the day before late fees kick in.  

Pricing is moving up fast in that segment.

So, you have a SFR for $140K, all in, that has a ARV of $150K, rents for $1300/mn, has more upside appreciation that any other SFR market segment, and has slightly positive cash flow AND limited CapEx for the first decade of ownership.

I would also recommend focusing on a specific segment of the industry -- i.e. discount retail, fast food, banks, drugstores, etc. -- and farming that within a few dynamic trade areas across the country, as opposed to taking a "shotgun" approach and trying (likely futilely) to master everything.  

a mailing list is only as good as you have segmented your market area:1. are they homeowners?

thanks Matt,As you probably see, I am new to real estate biz, I spent 12 years running product team in the software company which built POS solutions for retail sector.So RE is my next venture, and from what I see so far the name of the game today and for years to come is choosing right technology and marketing tools.So it's tough with out experience in RE to define all systems and processes, I am beginning to understand the theory and systems on the high level, but I am sure once I actually spend sometime working it will be much easier.I feel like the best thing to do at this point is to focus on basics like CRM and print, emai, text, social marketing campaign automation, once those things are in place and work smoothly, will be able to proceed to stage 2,To be frank, I am looking to learn this business and then comeback into software sector in RE segment, lot of good tools out there but as usual - lots of gapsI will be happy to keep intouch and colobirate on these topics

I have a Sales/Service position with the Valspar Corporation's Packaging business segment, specializing in barrier coatings for metal containers.I have no experience with Real Estate Investing to speak of, however I am looking to educate myself in order to help break into Real Estate Investing with a good understanding of the subject.

To use that info to judge where to buy a property you'll need to consider what demographics are moving to the city, what the housing trends are for those segments of the population, see if that's something that will continue over the next 5-10 years, consider what happens to those folks once they shift gears a bit (do they stay in the city?