Like I said, I am ready to step up from the sidelines and get in the game but I don't want to make a horrible decision.

The key now is to take that first step and buy that first place. 

This would be a good step to define the amount of money to put into savings.

Assume a 20% downpayment and your initial investment is only 60k. 

My first investment property was bought in 1992, near a market high, and it has returned far greater than 8% compound annual on my initial investment which was 100% pulled out in 2000. 

@Ned Carey  So my initial thought was to just buy out the ground rent since mine is covered under the 12% cap rate - that would put the break even at about 8 years and change.  

Maybe initially you are at break even on cash flow but after a couple of years your property will have appreciated and rents will most likely go up.

Has anyone seen an entrepreneur step into this space with a good data aggregator that gets down to zip code on things like job growth, median house price changes over time, population growth over time, ave rent prices over time, etc.?

There are steps and forms to fill out and turn in and you need to do it granting them enough time to respond properly.  

If I stepped on any toes here, that wasn't my intention.