I didn't know how to respond and was torn between going for the highest paying W2 possible for easier financing of deals, and between going with some real estate related career (mortgage lender, RE agent, working for property management company, etc).

(Unlike those great projects like the Big Dig in Boston, which had permits out the ears, and was inspected a million times, and still turned out to be crap work.)I think of Georgia as a relatively free state, but then I think that about Arizona, too and found out recently that you need a license there to be a painter.

I’m not sure about market specific things BUT I know wholesaling IS marketing and human relations.

These are relatively low cost but can be high risk and cash only purchases. 

and to understand how they fit together in your toolbox, as none will give you everything (e.g, insurance is required and it will cover you for many situations, but not always; asset protection (LLC) is litigation insurance and complements regular insurance, by minimizing the target and making it unappealing).If you are a new investor, probably you will not have a lot of assets and/or equity to worry about (but even that is relative and subjective to each person tolerance to risk) so I would not worry about that till you pass that risk threshold (in my opinion 100K+ in equity, maybe 50K if you are really risk adverse) and you should be primarily concerned with finding good deals and growing your business first.

I'd like to bounce some ideas with someone with experience, and would gladly share some of the data I've analyzed and collected in return for some information and guidance.

I saw that podcast but kinda overlooked it because I wasn’t sure it would relate to me.

Granted our target was smaller than resi houses.. as the amount of viable timber ground was less but we were also working an area from the Oregon border to just south of Tacoma so about 100 miles by 400 miles  was our data base.. 

We have sent countless millions of offers to owners since 1999 using assessor data consolidators like RealQuest Pro (the back end of Listsource).For houses I current filter1.

Is there a site or source that compiles data on the mortgage debt that we could look and analyze.