Also, try attending local real estate meetups to see who the players are and what the strategies are that would work better for you.

Too risky to trust your money to any automated system.The sales comparable approach to value will dominate regardless of cash flow if it's a single family home or 1-4 units and is being financed. 

After that, I am undecided on multi vs single family, but have a feeling that multi will dominate, as I am always looking for bigger and better.

I also understand that banks might be more willing to deal at the end of the quarter or year - the fewer properties on their books, the better for their balance sheet. end of quarter is a real thing I bought a big mansion that a NBA player had gotten 3.4 done  on a disposition from wells fargo .but it had to be off the books by a date certain so we had about 6 business days to close it.. we paid 1.7 million in cash for it. then refinanced it after we owned it and pulled out another million to finish it.. turned out to be my best rehab ever sold it first day on the market for 5 million :)  I had 2 other partners.. so its was a nice pay day.. but that all happened because wells wanted it off their balance sheet or default list by end of a certain quarter..

Much like "ratholing" in poker where the player takes his chips off the table and ends up only playing with the banks money. 

I don't want to do their job and they don't want to do mine.

You’ll get to know all the deals, all the players etc, lenders etc.

It is a major player in the local economy.

You're true about Cummins being the major player, while there are other local employers but as big as Cummins. 

However I regularly see new people coming in, Large national players as well as small guys, and they get crushed.