True, I'd avoided bad consumer debt, worked on my 401K, and did some saving, but I never started building a snowball toward wealth and freedom from a cubicle.

I'm considering finding homes that just have swamp coolers and putting in small duct air systems for their energy savings and ability to help them compete with newer builds. 

If you choose to work directly with the seller, that is your choice but then you might not be able to get help from a realtor.Some relators might do a CMA for a flat fee or to provide you what you need, but that does not prevent them in any case to show the property to their clients..If you want to do this on your own, that is fine, but then you need to do this on your own.If you are starting in real estate, you might be better of working with a local relator, it might save you money and issues down the road.

I would save my money for a down payment for a home or investment property.Below is link I posted about sacrifice for down payment.https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/12/topics/511...Terrence

Then saving the extra money for an emergency fund as well as your next down payment is much more important.Also when you go to get the second mortgage the bank is going to care more about you having reserves (more cash or assets that you can easily make liquid) than seeing you have paid down you mortgage some.  

Is this true or is anyone aware of tax savings or reductions when investing in your first property?

@Gregory Press I would definitely increase your vacancy, I typically use 8% as after a year you'll basically have 1 month's rent saved up (1/12 = 8.33%).

I learned that the end of December was not the ideal time to purchase a property, as I was not able to take advantage of a property tax reduction whereby a tenant was required to be in place by January 1st to take advantage of this property tax savings.

It would be a big tax saving for me by doing so.  

This has saved me several times.