If you don't have any money for automated lead generation like Investor Carrot, you can go Driving For Dollars and send direct mail/phone calls/door knocks/whatever

Do they have systems in place for lead generation?

I confirmed this in my local market doing my own testing.The keyword "We buy houses in [city]" is the highest keyword you want to bid for.How many houses I own or how many deals I have done this last year are personal questions I don't feel like answering mostly because they have nothing to do with lead generation.

My question here is two-fold - should we pick a city and then try to build this network, or feel out building a network in multiple cities and then pick a location based on where we can generate the strongest network? 

You need to have a 3rd party realtor query the MSL for your zipcode and generate you a list of recent sale and tally them up (last 3-6 months). 

If only I had a nickel for the amount of times I've heard infinite banking/whole life in the same sentence (spoiler alert: I would be very rich).You mean to tell me that just because someone has a podcast/website and says they have THE secret to wealth generation that they can share for a low low price if I call/email now, that they may be trying to take advantage of me?

@Jerryll Noorden has a lot of good points and I agree that SEO plays a major role in getting you leads, but SEO is not the best or only strategy - there are a few ways to go about getting leads, and every one of them is applicable and has its strengths.As you can see Jerryll is using a platform that helps you generate leads.

Develop a strategy that will generate you leads.

I DO use facebook.. but not for lead generation.

If you have around $3 million to invest that should get you into a $10- $12million asset which should generate around $200k income plus or minus on autopilot.