Yes, the ability to find great deals appears to be a combination of art, skill and sheer determination.

The fact that what they sell are magic beans, what they teach is impractical and what they do is largely master the art of separating an investor from their money is not the problem.

However I have this itch to invest in my first property to get started on my path to financial freedom and eventually liberate me from my 9-5. 

This apartment was state of the art when it was built - grand staircase, elevator, like a brownstone; even the street was upscale (Park Avenue).

(source: Deloitte - Blockchain in Commercial Real Estate).David Sacks, former COO @ Paypal, gave an interview to Fortune magazine recently, where he predicted that real estate will be the vanguard for a market where all sorts of assets, from fine art to shares in private funds, will be tokenized on a distributed ledger”.

I'm also pretty liberal with pricing. 

In the Bay Area, listing agents are pretty liberal with handing these out, especially if there's a possibility of double ending it in the agent's head....

The Spanish speaking people in Texas being taken advantage of are a myth created by the “liberal” politicians looking to secure “ethnic” votes to push their socialistic agenda.

This biz is part science & part art.

This will determine what kind of strategy you will follow, core, core plus, value add or opportunistic.If you were looking at $100k-$250k of capital I'd say you could be more liberal in your approach but since you are talking about 7 figures I would be alot more strategic about where you park your capital.