I know from my own experience that many in my social network have done really well from crowd sourcing real estate and stock market investing tricks.

Do NOT take this as a criticism of what you've done so far, but...You should NEVER, EVER, ask that question again... nor should you be asking it now. 

I'm lucky to have saved well and have an interested and friendly source of funds that wants to see where else he can invest money (#dad)... so I'm ready to get after it.

Then once you have either saved a down payment or gotten money from a partner of another source, creative financing, start investing as soon as possible!

Wanted to find good sources for wholesale lists in the area.

You should be familiar with Virginia’s Source of Income protection law.

While the source of the fraudulent email may be relatively easy to identify, in this case if I understand the facts correctly it sounds like the Seller's attorney sent it to the settlement company, identifying the computer that was compromised (hacked) is difficult. 

@Brandon Boyce - Local Facebook real estate investor groups, by attending local RE meetups, direct mailing campaigns, paying a VA to cold call, word of mouth by telling everyone you're a real estate investor, maintaining solid relationships with sellers (I've had an off market property sourced to me from a seller of a property I bought), developing relationships w/ wholesalers and investor focused agents who have "pocket listings". 

My name is Jay and I just discovered this jewel called biggerpockets, what an amazing source of knowledge and resources.

What about estimated income taxes sourced from rental income?