I'll just say that learning to use Excel proficiently for financial modeling has been one of the biggest assets in my understanding of the investment world. 

@Ned Carey  provides some excellent advice about searching surrounding areas.

Find YOUR market, and excel in YOUR niche'. 

If it falls below that or any other issues involved (consideration of a pet, for example), then they contact me and I decide.  

It has excellent loan terms so we do not want to lose it.

A little bit about myself for anyone interested:I'm looking to be a buy-and-hold investor while continuing my regular job - I am looking to put money to work and would be potentially interested in doing so as part of someone else's deal; I would consider both SFR and MFR deals.I am an investor in my day job (currently private equity / buyouts, soon to become public equities) so may have some bad habits, or at least industry-specific ones, to break; I generally anticipate being relatively analytical / systematic in looking at dealsMy family held a few properties when I was growing up - I have experience personally doing refurbishing work and secondhand experience with property management activities (this will hopefully help me as contextual information, I don't anticipate taking on an active role in refurb or property management in the near future)Right now, I am trying to educate myself on the process of deal sourcing (MLS, wholesaler buyer lists, etc.) and market data sources; in particular, I would really appreciate any input on good sources for publicly available market-level data in manipulable format such as Excel or .csv as well as input from anyone who uses a systematic deal-screening approach both on their criteria and how they get reliable / quality data into a screening-friendly formatThanks for everything people have already contributed. 

I am looking at a property that is in an excellent neighborhood and the upkeep is really well done.

My first CRM was an Excel spreadsheet @Michael Westberry .

I'm the idea guy, but stink at Operational Excellence...The type of idea-- 1+1 = 3.

A lot of my applicants want to know If I accept pets, and the answer is always NO!