“Whether for another or themselves, engages in a pattern of business of buying, selling, offering to buy or sell, marketing or sale, exchanging, or otherwise dealing in contracts, including assignable contracts for the purchase or sale of, or Buys, sells, offers to buy or sell, or otherwise deals in options on real estate or improvements thereon.

I have started to identify sources for hard money.

from what I've read so far, I know that following big companies head quarters, town renovations (parks, town life), and even yoga studios are markers of an up ad coming neighborhood. are there ways to find out what co...

First though - do your DD and identify whether or not your deal is located in a disclosure state or non-disclosure state. 

In oder to find these you could focus your time identifying 3 key neighbourhoods that are either growing or set to grow over the next 5-10 years and then start to learn each sector of investing wisdom 1-4s, SFRs, etc. so you become an expert and then within a couple of years you'll really know what you're doing and will be able to switch strategy at that point if you need/want to.

Since your tenant is going to be your buyer you are in a great position, you can wait to sell the property until you have identified what you are going to buy.

The familiar pattern of extremely high buyer demand, cripplingly low housing inventory, and rising prices continued during the first month of 2020 in the Austin metro area. 

Can you ask them how to identify the properties from that?

Identify sub markets in those cities you want to focus on that fit your strategy.

Without giving away your secrets, do you do any sort of analysis to identify locations?