In the past I have done my own taxes, but in 2016 I sold my deceased mother's home and purchased a rental property at the end of the year (no income source for 2016, just expenditures).  

A good online source for the above is rentfaxpro. 

In my opinion, it's the best source of money when starting out.  

@Aaron Bruenger is a great source and someone you should reach out to.

If you are counting on using the funds to complete a project it may be prudent to draw them out well before you will actually need them if you have no other source of funds.

As such, I believe my first priority is to research and understand what sort of low-money-down financing I can source for this first investment (FHA 203K has come up).

Build a portfolio of buy and hold properties to provide me with a source of passive income.

Source: www.consumer.ftc.govSo the problem you will face if you don't get a report that was generated by one of the bureaus is that your adverse action letter will not be able to comply - and thus the applicant will be unable to dispute the derogatory information that led to the adverse action.So, use a service that is intended to be used for tenant screening.

Make sure you come to CFRI and ask members who they use.Also Hope Richards is a good source for transactions and land trusts.

I found out about Bigger Pockets surfing the Internet about real estate investing and listened to some YouTube videos with Josh Dorkin.