Newbie in Fresno, CA area

[Josiah Collins]

Hello everyone! My name is Josiah and I moved to the Fresno area about a year ago from San Jose, CA. I got married and she lived in Fresno (pretty crazy story on how we met), so here I am! I currently work in sales at a Ferguson showroom in Fresno which deals with appliances, lighting and plumbing. I've always been interested in investing in general but a year ago I was pretty much forced into a landlord situation. My wife was in the processing of buying a new home in Fresno and I owned a home in San Jose. It didn't make sense to sell the San Jose house so we decided to rent it out. The landlord experience hasn't been terrible, but it's very difficult to manage it from Fresno and there is not enough cash flow for a property manager. We are considering selling the property in May when the tenants lease expires and doing a 1031 exchange for one or more properties in the Fresno area. I would love any advice that people have with regards to 1031 exchanges and the finer details. I'm particularly confused about how they look at the selling price of my current rental compared to properties we may purchase. Another area I'm super passionate/nerdy about is budgeting and personal finance. I'm a huge finance if YNAB and think it has been critical in changing my finances over the last five years! I look forward to getting plugged in here and have been lurking about he last few weeks reading everything I can about real estate investing, particularly strategies around buy and hold. Thank you! Josiah Collins