All cash or bank financed offer, seller financing at a higher price or a lease with option to buy at an even higher price.With option 2 - SF, I just broad stroke it. 

The more broad your education/licensing/certification on your resumé, the more opportunity.

I understood the broad question you ask is more or less, How do the "big players" make it work, ie-cash flow?

If you invest broadly for the long term (20-30 plus years) you’ll likely be fine.I know someone who has averaged 11 percent annually since the early 90s.  

that is such a broad question so yo know what the number one answer is right?

Are there any good resources you would recommend that give broad overviews of the markets and then some that provide more detail?

Since that time, I have had the opportunity to work with several investors from BP and just wanted to take a moment to share some of the things we have been able to do.When it comes to "Automation" there are a lot of misconceptions because the term is so broad.

I don't want to tie up a property by a renter that won't be exercising the option and usually an option sets a price a seller is obliged to sell for, so if there is appreciation, the renter benefits.You need to do more research as the range of comps is too broad.

So rather than spend a bunch of money and bring in a specialist inspector for all the different trades (electrical, plumbing, HVAC, roof, etc) you can bring in a generalist at a fraction of the cost to evaluate the whole house looking for a broad range of problems. 

Several websites you can go to on your own to help you decide if this is the area/property for you: Zillow for broad-stroke comps and what the sale/rental market looks like (how many rentals there are like yours and what they’re renting for), www.city-data.com for demographic data (like number of occupied rentals), and www.harriscountyfemt.org for flood plain data.