Introductions, and a few questions!

[Jeffery Burns]

Hello everyone. My name is Jeff, 27, and my wife, 25, have both had a vested interest in real estate for the last 2 years. In April this year we closed on our starter home, and have since been saving up and doing mountains of research into what to expect in this field.

We don't have any kids and don't plan on having any until we have at least 5 doors of real estate, in any combination of either single or <4 unit multis. We have a set roadmap on our financial and estate goals, and are both working two jobs each to get where we need as fast as we can. (We both work at one of the same jobs so we can still spend a bit of time together during breaks).

So for my questions...

1) are you or someone you know a real estate agent? My wife wants to be one, but we don't know which website / area would be the best to go to for getting certified.

2) when you bought your first rental(s), did you hire a management company immediately to tend to them, or did you manage them yourself? If the latter, how many unit(s) did you accumulate before passing them to a management company, if at all?

3) what would be your recommended minimum cashflow / cash-on-cash return for the very first rental property? Looking for percentage amounts, and my current standard is 18.5%.

Thanks for taking the time to read. and I hope to make good connections and learn a lot more here than I could alone!