Of course as time goes on and you become a more sophisticated investor, there absolutely is a place for targeted seminars and coaching that will teach you about more advanced areas of REI such as syndication or non performing notes, but that isn't necessary for basic bread-and-butter single family rental investing.Kiyosaki does offer some helpful videos that are available for free on YouTube.  

What is your target acquisition range?

The best way to jump into buy and hold ownership is to target an owner occupied multi family home with an FHA loan - which means only 3.5% down payment.

The aim is to target 80-130k homes of the same/similar dimension, rooms, etc.

That is the annual rate, you should be targeting to flip deals in 4 months or less.

(That seems like a tough niche - umpteen people crammed into a single house...I would have hated to see what it looked like afterwards.)What's your target market?

Having done both REI and a construction company I can see the relationships, and can also see they are two totally different animals on a large scale ;) Personally, the REI is not my target customer, a waste of my time, there are bigger fish out there I'd rather fry. :) I see my REI business as related, but separate, totally different contracts, legal entity, and business model.

I can do CMA's all day long and all over Virginia, but if I am not a market expert in the target property's location, than I cannot be confident in the CMA's accuracy.

You can target larger homes with cheaper land to get a bigger cost seg. 

If you are targeting these areas with a roommate for a 2 bed, your share will be $3.5k / 2 = $1.75k  or $1.16k if there's 3 of you per month in rent give or take depending on your agreement.