Pete FL) and have studied numerous other markets (principally Chicago IL and Toledo OH) over the past 20 years. 

However in our market in Portland for instance there are NO war zones.. there are no 5 to 10k houses..

@Yannik Cudjoe-VirgilNice post, this is gold for investors that do not live in Baltimore City.I live in federal hills and I’m trying to get into escrow in my first multi family property around here, However in my vision there is a lot of competition in A neighborhoods and people kinda getting into a bid war on multi family properties.Basically it’s almost impossible to get into a multi family here with a FHA loan because there are a lot of cash investors or multiple offer with conventional loans with 25% down which makes my offers not to strong.Do you have any experience with multi family property around here?

I've also noticed a lot of wholesalers trying to start bidding wars among multiple cash buyers, which further drives up the price of course.Again, I think you can succeed with this method, but it is a grind and you're going to have to kiss a lot of frogs to find an acceptable prince(ss).The second answer, which almost no one wants to hear or talk about, is that if you just can't find properties where the #s look good... don't buy anything.It's almost heresy here on BP, but to me, when #s are high and people seem to be paying prices that don't make sense, and doing other crazy things like buying properties without inspections... it may just not be the best time to buy.No one wants to hear that because it seems like everyone they know is making major money in real estate, and they want to join the party, but I can say that I saw the same thing in 2006 so when I start to feel a sense of "irrational exuberance" in the market, it makes me want to reassess things, start to add more cautious assumptions into my property analyses, etc.So I think your three choices are: 1) buy something at full retail even though the numbers are awful (and pray rents keep going up as they have for the last decade, so you can service that mortgage); 2) spend a lot of time and effort finding an off market deal (maybe the best option, but I guarantee it will be a grind); or 3) accept that the market is crazy right now and wait until the market changes and #s do start to look better in general.I'm not saying that any one is the right choice, just that sometimes the right action can be no action at all (right now).

You can use the proceeds on down payments for numerous smaller properties. 

   - Read numerous biggerpockets posts, podcasts, youtube channels etc

There are numerous books you can buy here from seasoned, successful, knowledgeable investors like @Brandon Turner @David Greene @J Scott @Joshua Dorkin and plenty more professional.

Lots of good war stories once it became a revolving door of transitional folks, turning over every several months.

There are numerous pre-recorded webinars to watch as well as articles and books to read.

There are numerous state and local eviction moratoriums still in effect, and they all have different rules.