I am hoping the education and access to MLS will aid me in finding better deals. 

In my opinion the ONLY thing all successful real estate investors have in common...

@Michael ClayI'll give you my opinion on your questions:1) Since you are lending you become the mortgagee and can require both an appraisal and inspection, but you need to make this explicit.

If you combine avoiding closed cities with MSAs that are growing and/or have more tax/business friendly outlooks and invested outside of them you stand a good chance of making some money. what I find is that unlike here in our market in PDX  many of the folks I know out in the mid west send there kids to private academy's this has a direct effect on how much house they can own.. there is far more private education in those areas than we have here probably 10 to 1.. that is a great point. 

A few weeks ago I went to a REI meetup but was kind of disappointed when I arrived and sat thru a presentation where they talked about financial freedom trading time for money then offered to sell me their education for $20k and from what I've seen that is pretty cheap compared to some others.

Any where else a fund is a better option in my opinion since SFHs generally have very poor cash on cash returnes (cash flow).

I would like to put my efforts and time now towards real estate investing and education.  

Have you gotten the opinion of a local realtor who places tenants?

Clarification needed because resources could be educational or informational, and assets include but not limited to MFH, MHP, storage, offices, hotels, etc.

I think the best place for you to start is to continue to educate yourself through the different programs/blogs/articles on the BP site relating to house hacking, including the different financing methods (e.g.