Once you have this team in place, you should be able to invest in any market confidently.As for picking a specific market - I would go after one with an increasing job and population growth.

Any specific blogs, people or places I need to plug-in to learn?

So then I decided to look into the possibility of opening my own practice and specializing in Real Estate specifically.

Be careful - follow the laws specific to your area.

The more stable investor with long term vision, reasonable budgets, and solid strategy and gameplan are still buying (the right properties) and doing well. 

I would probably continue to save so you can increase your budget

It took us 2-3 years to settle on a solid budget.

Specifically, there's job growth (Intel, Honda, Amazon, Nationwide, etc) and the population is growing (unlike Cleveland or Cincy).

If actions by the tenant in a NNN lease leads to a contractor placing a mechanics lien on the property, and assuming the lease agreement does not specifically address this scenario, what options are available to the landlord to resolve this?

I rent specifically to contractors working short term jobs at a local petroleum refinery.