My thought is to start in tax deed states near high growth areas and targeting municipalities or builders in the area since those seem like the largest buyers.

I chose GaREIA because its the largest and has the most experienced investors flipping and buy and hold. 

This is Allegheny County, If you know the county court and county property records-keeping systems, you can crawl so far up into people's private business using the online records system that you're ashamed of how much you know about them.Our tenants also typically come from the health-care industry, our area's largest employer.

We've been trying to read up on everything and are hopefully we will have more rentals in the near future but this being our first and largest, the expenses are always going to be more. 

My largest deal is 8 units.

I advise several companies and invest in one of the largest crypto syndicates in the world.  

I would consider putting a cheap wifi security cam inside the front door to get notified of motion. 

If so, would it make sense then to get the largest loan first?

The largest I have currently is 4 bedrooms but I'd like to get into larger places eventually.

And second fastest growing city, now the 5th largest in the country.