One source of cities to avoid is Neighborhood Scout's 100 most dangerous cities.

Why don’t you start with food?

The proposed legislation eliminates the ability of suitable investors to participate in private capital-raising transactions through their IRAs, a source of funding on which many of these small businesses rely.

If LA, I can definitely help you with connecting to the right people/resources and sourcing properties.

Maybe a dumb question with an obvious answer that I have overlooked, but does anyone have recommendations for good real estate news sources about market trends, developments, etc.?

One other major thing is your listing sources, avail.co shoots it out to a bunch of websites. 

I've never taken out a loan against my 401(k), so I can't speak to that, but no matter how bullish you are on real estate, you want to have other sources of retirement funds too, if only for piece of mind.I hope you let us know how it goes!

Along with that, my primary and only source of income is derived from driving Uber.

Do you write off the expenses, improvements, depreciation ,etc of your investment off your A) rental income (cash flow) or B) primary income (full-time job)

However, the Cashflow produced by a handful of properties is enough to cover that expense on an annualized basis.My goal is a cash out refi to source the funds, keeping the Cashflow as further reserves.