The loan is still on my name, but is being paid off every month by my buyer.

Look for motivated sellers off market and market via cold calling and or direct mail, geofencing, advertising and the like.A good wholesaler is as @Ericka Parrott mentioned, direct to seller, did good underwriting and can deliver an actual "Deal" whether buy and hold or flip. 

My mother-in-law is saying that my wife needs to sign off on the loan.

If I had to leave a takeaway from this post before getting too far in it would be that whatever goals are had you have, we have these goals for a reason and typically it does not go exactly as planned but even if it doesn't go as planned, we can pick up where we left off and give it a fresh start.

Quote from @Josh Otero: Hi BP community, I know you've got some crazy tenant stories and I want to hear it.I'll go first:1) I was managing a 5 story apartment building and a dog fell off the 4th floor balcony because of the owner not paying attention.

The other info sounds great but I would verify the assumptions I mentioned because if they’re off, it throws everything else off.  

Simply put, we start off with the As Repaired/Completed Value (ARV), then subtract from that number a reasonable profit, the rehab cost (scope of work), which we've gotten good at, a contingency reserve for any "unexpecteds", our cost of capital/carrying costs (interest and costs of the leverage used), and our costs/fees on the buy and sell sides of a flip.

It’s not a binary on/off choice.

We've thought about trying to sell off each unit.

For someone new to real estate investing that wants to do long term rentals, do you recommend starting off in an area close to them/an area they're familiar with or someplace that will give them the best return even if it's out of state. 2.