Especially in today's competitive market where new people are entering and leaving all of the time.I would agree with @David Michael that getting your real estate license is a good idea.

They will essentially be forced to choose between remaining competitive and remaining viable.And none of this is to say that its "a patriot's duty" or any such thing to invest in single family homes. 

But in Los Angeles theres strong competition and if Im going to do this I need to be perfect spot on.I have tons of "other" agents letters and post cards , so I know very well what my competition is doing,

In the market I'm in (Denver Metro) there is so much competition that you have to not only show your value but sometimes beat out competition which can be extremely difficult when other investors are always willing to offer another thousand on top of your last offer.

He'd need to run his own numbers to tell me if this is true but my assumption and belief was that getting half the profit on a good flip will net him a larger margin on his efforts than he's normally getting on projects in which he has no vested interest, and for which he went through a competitive bidding process.  

I wish I got some valuable input on which houses on MLS are strong indicators of promising deals, granted it's beyond super-competitive.  

It is very competitive.

We are in a hyper competitive sellers market and agents need to be prepared to put in serious work to get transactions closed.  

I would like to begin in short term rental and looked at the Smokey Mountains.It looks like Blue Ridge has a lot of potential too and is maybe less competitive.

Hi Jason.The Florida markets are very competitive, but also provide good opportunity.