Here in Anne arundel county Md , you need to pull a permit to change the wax ring on a toilet ..

They get the phone ringing.

It looks like @Andrew Cordle has given you a ton of great advice on how to get started.As far as the Richmond market there are a couple of good REIA's including: Richmond REIA and Richmond RING.

@Brianna Schmidt The seller's ears must have been ringing, she emailed me yesterday and requested I contact a reliable contractor and give her an esitmate.

So my phone keeps ringing now. thank goodness, it feels good.

I am currently using Ring Central for my real estate investing phone system and want to change.

It probably wasn't the best financial move but with the phone starting to ring I had to make a decision and a company came along that was manageable at best. 

I recommend you lookup "The RING" (Real Estate Investors' Network Group) found on meetup.com to meet other local investors/agents in the Baton Rouge market. 

You will still need as they told you, apparently 2 exits from the attic and they have to be a certain number of feet apart whatever that is for that place, but you already know that I'm sure if it's a city inspector.Yes be prepared for the inspections, especially after the next big buy, most of the inspectors I have dealt with or nearly all of them at least decent and some are even nice, but just keep that in mind about not like you have to kiss the ring or anything like that, but just being from somewhere else, but especially Chicago you never know what someone somewhere in that huge department might very well have a chip on his shoulder about landlords!

If those phrases don't ring a bell, start googling