Lots of real estate questions lately! I'm glad others are getting into real estate investing, it's such a great opportunity to provide stable income for FIRE, plus high returns. It's really quite silly.
Yes, there are investor "hot spots," but that doesn't mean you want to be there. North Dakota has been a hot spot due to oil towns booming and prices doubling, tripling, crazy rent amounts, etc. Investors made a lot of money (and still are). Still, not somewhere I'd want to be long term, and using that income for FIRE would worry me.
You'll probably want to start reading real estate forums, finding out where investors are, then start researching those areas. Median prices, rent levels, vacancy levels, job and economic situation, etc.
It's not low work, like clicking "transfer" to send money from bank account to Vanguard, but there are great rewards. You can make it low work (by investing with an expert, private money lending, hard money loans, etc. is one way to be involved in real estate without having to do much work), but then you won't get as outlandish returns.
You could probably get a solid 8% just lending your money with no work, but then you'd be giving up a few percent returns, not get the tax benefits, etc. You could get 10-12% + points with a little more work (finding them and doing due diligence, basically) doing hard money loans, but then you have money idle a lot more. Both those help avoid doing the landlord thing and are a good way to get involved out of state. Otherwise if you're willing to put in the work then you can do the research, due diligence, and landlording, and get all the benefits (higher returns, tax benefits, and potential appreciation) along with the headaches.
I prefer the latter, but I know plenty of investors that hate that, but do all the former stuff and still make loads of money in real estate. YMMV.