I have been looking around for a local group and have come across the Central Indiana Real Estate Investors Association (CIREIA) from a number of searches. 

Just trying to get a feel for where I need to target my search.

My search has been consisting of small multifamily houses that I can house hack.

I found you from searching hardmoneypros and your forum brought some helpful critical advice....

As I continue to search for that first property my plan is to already have a few general contractors in order.

I don't know if I should keep him, search for another realtor, or work with two.

It seems like the “search” function is gone from the BP App?

I stumbled across a website that had heat maps and rankings for the cities in terms of most desireable so I was just looking to see if some of those would be confirmed by a local as being correct.

Maybe run numbers to see if it would be a good BRRRR property to refi your capital back out (if you're not familiar with BRRRR search the forums and blogs,it's a great method for redeploying capital without a sale).

She then has the ability to make a tax-free annual gift of $15,000 to you and your sister (and sisters kids) if she so desires, so that you can start using that money now.