I worked with a real estate attorney in the Omaha Nebraska area, Jason Hubbard and I highly recommend him and his paralegal Lucy they are fantastic they worked on my lease and created my LLC - actually both of them now.Also, with my bathroom reno, I worked with "The Tile Guys" locally owned in Omaha Nebraska - they were amazing - fast and extremely well priced they knocked all other quotes out of the water!

Go knock on the door with $50 cash in hand and ask the tenants if you can see the house . 

After closing, I knocked on the door and politely introduced myself.

Only licensed Real Estate Agents are allowed to negotiate a short sale with the bank.I usually "door knock" these leads when there is equity and my speech at the door is "Hi my name is Joe and I am a Real Estate Investor. 

Disclaimer: I'm not calling myself a genius; I've learned a lot through the school of hard knocks.

Not as knock to your goals, but for $6k gross a month, doing retail arbitrage has way less risk, way less headaches and is probably easier.

Put together a team (realtors, contractors, attorney, accountant, bird dogs etc) Put together a marketing plan as to how you will acquire the product (direct mail, bandit signs, cold calling, door knocking, leveraging bird dogs - agents, PPC, SEO, Facebook ads etc) Put together a CRM or tracking mechanism to be able to track the lead flow and response from mediums so you can create a follow up system. 

My wife and wife and I are also debt free after knocking out $182k in 5 years.

Approached the property after documentation was signed and knocked on doors, appeared abandoned, changed the locks.

I don't call, I don't email, I don't knock on their door.